Took the telescope out last night, it was a very clear evening. I was able to snap a few shots of M57, The Ring Nebula. I was pretty suprised they came out like they did, this was the first time I’ve used the 15 second exposure option on my digital camera - I had the mount aligned pretty good so there aren’t very long “star trails” from the long exposure.
M57, The Ring Nebula, is a Planetary Nebula 2300 light-years (which google tells us is 1.35205496 × 10^16 miles) away from us. A Planetary Nebula is a “shell” of gas and plasma that is left when some types of stars die/explode. At the center of this is that star, a white dwarf now. Unfortunately you can’t see it in my picture.
The Ring Nebula is the small doughnut looking shape in the center.
1 response so far ↓
1
EJ
// Jun 18, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Hmmm, just looked at that pic on my crappy monitor and can’t see the nebula. Sorry if you have a CRT like mine!