M76 - The Little Dumbbell |
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M76 (NGC 650) is a planetary nebula found in Perseus (The son of Zues). M76 is also known as The Cork Nebula, and The Butterfly Nebula. It is 3400 light years away. It shines at magnitude 12, and is 4.8' across.
This shot was taken at f/10 with the 12" LX200, AO7, and ST-8E CCD from my home dome in Monmouth Oregon on November 8, 2001.
Filter | Exposure | Count | Binning |
Luminance | 50 min | 10 x 5 min | 2x2 |
Red | 10 min | 2 x 5 min | 2x2 |
Green | 10 min | 2 x 5 min | 2x2 |
Blue | 20 min | 4 x 5 min | 2x2 |
The luminance frames were botched by leaving a light on in the dome. This left a nasty gradient that took a lot of effort to remove. Then after a touch of sharpening, Photoshop was used to merge the L and RGB color data.