EarthSky Community Photos

Submit your photo here. Comment or upvote on photo pages. Search via photographers' names. More improvements coming! To help, please donate.

David Hoskin
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
04/21/2022
12:45 am

Equipment Details:

Celestron 150mm XLT f/5 reflector, ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera with Optolong L-Pro filter, SkyWatcher EQ6R Pro mount.

Post-processing Details:

40 4-minute lights plus calibration frames were stacked using ImagesPlus; other post-processing used Siril, Photoshop CS2 plus Astronomy Tools plugin, PhotoScape X, and MS Photo.

Image Details:

The Owl Nebula (Messier 97), so named because of the two dark patches that resemble the eyes of an owl, is a wonderful planetary nebula that is easy to find under dark skies with a mid-sized telescope. Look 2.5 degrees south east of Merak in the direction of Phad, both of which are bright stars in the Big Dipper asterism, to locate Messier 97. The nebula is only about 8,000 years old. It is 2,030 light years from Earth.