M 27 Dumbbell Nebula

Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula Luminance only

My LX600 was in the shop, so I bought some time on the 20" Dall-Kirkham telescope at Skygems Observatories.

  • AG 20-inch f/6.7 iDK telescope
  • FLI Proline 16803 CCD
  • 3 x 600 seconds luminance only
  • 4051px x 4056px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula LRGB

  • AG 20-inch f/6.7 iDK telescope
  • FLI Proline 16803 CCD
  • 3 x 600 seconds L, 2 x 300 seconds each R, G and B
  • 3000px x 3000px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula RGB

For contrast, one of the MicroObservatory telescopes took two each red, green and blue. Not a perfectly fair comparison, but it shows the difference in scale. The telescopes use a KAF-1400 sensor, which is 1400 x 1000 but binned 2x2 and cropped to 650 x 500 to fit on an older Mac screen. The observatory software was developed for use on donated Macintosh computers.

  • MicroObservatory (Donald) 6" f/4 modified Maksutov
  • 650 x 500 CCD
  • 2 x 60 seconds each R, G and B dark subtracted (no flat field)
  • 633px x 479px
  • August 2020
Dumbbell Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula with the 12" LX600

I'll call this first light for the recently repaired LX600. The moon was at 49% and the camera had no LPR filter.

  • 12" LX600
  • SBIG STF-8300EN CCD
  • 50 x 60 seconds luminance
  • 1661px x 1247px
  • September 2020