My Preciousss (M57 Ring Nebula from Peckham)...cropped

This is a cropped version of The Ring Nebula I uploaded yesterday to make the ring more centred and bigger but not too big to expose the limitations of my 80mm resolution.

 

My original description:

 

Just trying to see how far I can push my pushing my 80mm apo refractor in London light pollution. I didn't think this scope could resolve the donut shaped nebula but I was pretty chuffed to see it can...hope you can see it? It is small, granted. Zoom in if you cant.

 

So this is a planetary Nebula. The remnant materials shed of a star that came to the end of its main phase of life. In much much larger telescopes, a white dwarf lies in the centre. I previously images the dummbell nebula which is a similar planetary nebula but with a "side on" perspective compared to this nebula we observe "top down" perspective.

 

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Capture details

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Location: Peckham, London, Living Room window!

 

Light Pollution Bortle grade (1 darkest sky, 9 highest light pollution) : 8-9

 

Telescope: 80mm Equinox APO refractor with a field flattener

Mount: Nexstar 6/8SE Alt Az on a sturdy table.

Camera: Canon 650D unmodded

No filters used

 

Light frames

557 X 5 Sec ( 48 mins)

ISO 1600

32 Dark Frames

 

Stacked with DSS (Deep Sky Stacker). Manually adjusted RGB levels, luminosity and saturation to get as visually appealing image with colour stars before importing into imaging software.

 

Camera Raw: slightly cropped, adjusted black, and curves

 

Photoshop. Violently, clipped dark side information to eliminate colour noise . gradually adjusted levels multiple times to eliminate light pollution, curves to bring out more detail.

Done