M27 The Dumbbell Nebula RGBHaOIII

[HunterHarling]

The Dumbbell Nebula is a popular summer target, and one of my personal favorites! It resides in the constilation Vulpecula at a distance of 1360 light-years, and is estimated to have an age of 15,000 years. The Dumbbell Nebula was first discovered by Charles Messier in 1764, when he added it to his "Not Comets" list as number 27.

 

For processing this image, I combined the red and Ha images 50/50, and the blue and green images 50/50 with OIII to produce this Narrowband/RGB image.

 

Image details:

Edge HD 800 SCT, ASI1600MM PRO, ZWO filters and filter wheel, and Orion Atlas Pro AZ EQ-G mount.

 

Red=12×180s

Green=12×180s 

Blue=12×180s

Ha=60×600s

OIII=60x600s

Total of 21 hours of Exposure.

 

Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.

Comments and questions always welcome.

Thanks for looking!

[Rodd]

Lots of detail there Hunter.   Drop teh brightness in the nebula a bit and it will pounce out at you.

Rodd

[Tim]

I really like that rendition, less red than we usually see and it has a more "gassy" appearance for it, which does justice to the nature of the nebula.

[Mick J]

Nice big M27,  21 hours with cmos,  wow, thanks Hunter

[wimvb]

Excellent image. As @Rodd said, you could drop the brightness a bit. This will give it a bit more colour. I think you can also safely drop the background a little. In PixInsight I usually have it at 0.07 - 0.075, slightly darker than @ollypenrice's suggestion of 23/23/23. Just don't clip pixels.

[Allinthehead]

Beautiful dumbbell.

[HunterHarling]

Thanks everyone!

Here's with a darker core and slightly darker background.

[Mick J]

For me that's better, less bright in the core and much more transparent,  nice star colour, good work.

[MarsG76]

Great looking dumbbell... I like the outer layers..