Saturday 6 October 2012

First Deep Sky Object

Got setup tonight for the first time with my new scope and managed to bag my first Deep Sky Object.

The Ring Nebula.

It is located in the Northern Constellation of Lyra and also catalogued  as Messier 57 (M57), or NGC 6720. It is one of the most prominent examples of the DSOs called a Planetary Nebula. It was discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in Jan, 1779. It has an apparent Magnitude of 8.8.

This invisible to the naked eye Nebula is 2,300 Light Years away, So.................Pretty far away.

I took 12 Images (lights) and 3 Darks (these subtract the noise from the lights) in order to get these images. Each Light was a 30 second exposure @ ISO 800.

I would have liked to do longer exposures but my alignment was slightly out so anything longer was giving me elongated (eggy) stars.

First image is a wider shot with M57 in the middle:

Click on image to Enlarge

This is a close up of M57:

Click on image to Enlarge

Things to learn from this first image is that Astro-Photography is a very steep learning curve but one that is filled with possibilities. I hope you enjoy following me on this journey.


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