M57 Ring Nebula

The Ring Nebula appears in the northern constellation of Lyra.  It is a prominent example of a planetary nebula.  This is a shell of ionized gas expelled into the surrounding interstellar medium by a red giant star, which was passing through the last stage in its evolution before becoming a white dwarf.

This image was taken using an 8" SCT, a Canon 40D DSLR. It is a composite image of  10 x 70sec images at ISO 640 stacked in RegiStax and final processing in Photoshop.

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