The Owl Nebula, Messier 97, a planetary nebula in our galaxy, and the edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 108, paired in the same area of sky below the Bowl of the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. This is a stack of 5 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with the Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera taken as part of testing, on January 14/15, 2019. This was through the Astro-Physics Traveler refractor at f/6 with the Hotech field flattener. No LENR or dark frames applied but it was about -10° C. Flat fielding supplied by lens correction in Camera Raw and by Gradient Xterminator filter in Photoshop.
A portrait of the pairing of the Owl Nebula, M97, with the edge-on spiral galaxy M108, below the Bowl of the Big Dipper. The Owl is a magnitude 9.8 planetary nebula in our galaxy about 1700 light years away, while M108 is another galaxy about 32 million light years away, and shining at magnitude 10. There are many very tiny 15th to 18th magnitude galaxies in the field as well, carrying PGC designations. North is to the left in this framing. This is a stack of 20 x 6-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 1600, through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT apo refractor at f/6 with the 6x7 field flattener. Autoguiding was with the MGEN3 stand-alone guider which controlled the camera shutter and performed a 5-pixel dithering move between each exposure. The mount was the AP Mach 1. No dark frames or LENR was applied. Aligning and stacking, with a Median blend mode, was with Photoshop, which worked perfectly on this set. Taken from home on a very clear night on April 13-14, 2021.
