The Dumbbell Nebula, also known as M27, is the 27th entry in Charles Messier's catalog of objects that are not comets. M27 is a planetary nebula that was created by a dying star blowing off its gaseous envelope and then becoming a hot white dwarf. The ultra-violet radiation from the white dwarf makes the gas it blew away glow. Planetary nebula come in a large variety of shapes primarily depending on the angle we're viewing it from and whether the star is a single or binary star. You can see the white dwarf at the center of the nebula in this photograph.
This is the first time I've tried photographing it and was very pleased I was able to get a decent result considering I took from my backyard observatory under a very light polluted suburban sky (Bortle 8/9). The limiting magnitude of this photograph is far deeper than the mag 17.0 limit of my database (SkySafari 6 Pro).
Photographer: Rick Scott
Date / Time: June 18-19, 2020 from 11:36 PM to 1:26 AM MST
Telescope: home-made 10" f/4.6 Lurie-Houghton
Mount: Losmandy HGM Titan with Gemini 2
Guiding: ZWO 60280, ZWO ASI120MM Mini, PHD2
Camera: Canon EOS 60Da controlled with BackyardEOS
Filter: Optolong L-Pro
Exposure 61 x 60 sec, f/4.6, ISO 800 in raw mode
40 flats, 40 bias, and 40 dark frames
Processed in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and Adobe Photoshop CS6.
Updated: June 19, 2020