Planetary Nebula M76 (NGC 650) in Perseus

For the second imaging night with the ST-7XE, I mounted the telescope in Polar Mode. This is the first time I used the tracking CCD of the camera for automatic guiding of the telescope and I experimented with automatic tracking and stacking. The striping in this final image is the result of poor polar alignment and the sub-exposures being too short.

In this image of M76, commonly known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, the bright expanding elliptical ring seen almost edge-on is quite obvious. The dim "wings" along the axis perpendicular to this ring are visible as well, although barely in this image. Both of these structures are expanding.

20x15s exposures combined (total 5 minutes). Camera cooled to -25°C.