The Owl (also known as M97 and NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula. The Owl is in constellation Ursa Major, and has a magnitude 9.0 and size 3.4 by 3.3 arc-minutes. It is one of the fainter objects in the Messier catalog and was actually discovered by Pierre Mechain. It is 2600 light years distant.

An LRGB composite made from: three 10 minute unbinned luminance, two 2x2 binned 10 minute red, two 2x2 binned 10 minute green, and three 2x2 binned 10 minute blue.  The color was balanced to 1:1:1.7.

Guiding was via a mag 11.5 star at 2s (even through the blue filter).

Taken at the Mistletoe site near Monmouth Oregon on May 5, 2000.

A composite of two 1 minute exposures and one 2 minute exposure taken with the 12" LX200 and 416XT CCD at f/3.3 in my Corvallis, Orogon driveway on March 29, 1998.  Unguided.