Thursday October 3, 2024

The Dumbbell Nebula (evening)

The Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 27, is a large planetary nebula in southern Vulpecula. Planetary nebulas are the corpses of low mass stars like our sun. At the end of such a star's life, fusion ceases in its core, allowing the star to collapse under self-gravity and to expel its outer layers -
forming a sphere of gas surrounding the hot core, a white dwarf star. The Dumbbell is a good target for backyard telescopes on dark moonless evenings. Its pinched shape also resembles an apple core. The best way to find it is to look three degrees north of the star Eta Sagittae (or ? Sag), which marks the arrowhead of neighboring Sagitta. Good binoculars and backyard telescopes can reveal M27. Or better yet, use a large aperture telescope and an Oxygen-III or Ultra High Contrast filter.


(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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