A few weeks ago I discovered ... well okay, I did read about the Dumbbell Nebula and that there are 2 other "Dumbbells": the Little Dumbbell (M76) .... and the Baby Dumbbell (Hu 1-2 , PN G086.5-08.8, PK 086-08.1, ARO 89).
This one is almost never captured, it has no NGC or IC number so it's not on the listings that a lot of people check. So of course had to try it (I am a sucker for underdogs) with first light of my Meade LX200 8" f/10 ACF OTA.
Also a challenge because my Zwo ASI294MC Pro is send to Zwo to check, so I did this with the ASI385MC which has no cooling and a way smaller FOV. This capture is uncropped 13.7 x 7.76 arcmin and has 0.425 arcsec/pixel.
Collimation of the LX200 was just great: only had to do 2 tiny adjustments. Still obvious room for improvement but I just had to do this first light because: clear skies
Because of that, the stars are in focus but big.And the scope really is an improvement over the LX65 8" ACF: focussing is better, of course the mirror lock is cool and the optics are even better from what I can see now with the ASI385MC.
The Baby Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nebula, it is fairly bright (mag 7 core and mag 12 arms) and rather easy to find as a small blob with a 6" scope or bigger in Cygnus. The sort of X-shape is clear to be seen but it has almost no color.
The inner part is 15 arcsec and with the arms it's around 25 arcsecs. The structure itself has a kind of fuzzy cloud-like appearance, but this is only visible with a > 20" scope or the HST. It is at 9900 light years and was discovered in 1920.
The Netherlands, Bortle 7/8
Meade LX200 8" f/10 ACF OTA
Ioptron CEM25EC mount (no guiding)
Baader Neodymium SkyGlow filter
Zwo ASI385MC camera
Captured with SharpCap Pro
100 x 60 sec / Gain 90 / Offset 15 / White balance R50/B50
Manual dithering
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker 100 lights + 28 darks + 100 flats + 100 dark flats
Processed in Photoshop
Levels, curves, color saturation, reduce noise.
