Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula
October 20, 2024
In between other projects over the last three months, I snuck in exposures of M27. I started the project by just shooting a few test frames when I needed an easy target. That evolved into a little side quest to get enough data for a decent image. Most nights, I imaged M27 after one target had set while I was waiting on another…30 minutes here, a hour there…
I took 25.5 hours of exposures and used 21.5 hours of those. I played with the new Cosmic Clarity’s standalone version for the stars before merging them back into the starless image. I used Siril’s OSC_Extract_HaOIII script for the first time on this & used a 60/40 Ha/OIII split on the green channel.
Click here for the full-sized image.
My Lightbucket imaging log is here.
Details:
- Explore Scientific ED127
- Hotech SCA flattener
- STF-8300C camera with an L-eXtreme filter
- Losmandy G11 mount on a custom BoldMFG pier
- 129x 600sec sub-exposures (21.5hr used of 25.5hr recorded) from my Bortle ~5 backyard
- Captured in NINA
- Processed in an HOO palette with Siril, GraXpert, Photoshop, NXT & Cosmic Clarity