• Exposure:  RGB
  • All exposures binned 1x1
    
  • R 12x250s, G 11x190s, B 12x300s
• Telescope:  Stellarvue SV152 @ f/7.9
• Mount:  MI-250 GoTo
  
• Camera:  SBIG ST-10XME CCD, SBIG CFW-8
• SBIG Standard RGB filters
• Location:  My backyard in Santa Barbara, CA
• Date/Time: 
  
  • October 5-6, 2005, 21:17-12:46 PDT
    
• Processing:  Taken  in MaxIm v4 using CCDCommander.  Reduced in CCDSoft.  Aligned with RegiStar.  Combined sub-exposures with Ray Gralak's Sigma Clip.  DDP in MaxIm.  Levels, unsharp mask, selective blur in Photoshop.
  
  
• Notes: First complete image with the Stellarvue SV152!
  Manually focused.

• Name:  The Dumbbell Nebula, M27, NGC6853
• Type:  Planetary Nebula
• Constellation:  Vulpecula
• Distance:  1200 light years
• Physical Diameter:  ~2.5 light years (brightest part), up to ~6 light years for the dimmest portions
• Angular Diameter:  ~6 arc minutes for the brightest part. The dimmer parts extend up to 15 arc minutes. The nebula is expanding at about 7 arc seconds per century!

I've been waiting to shoot this with a CCD camera for a long time. This object was my very first astrophoto in 2001 with Kodak E200 film! I had never been happy with the field of view I would have until I received the SV152. It is certainly interesting to see the difference!