Derby and District Astronomical Society



Messier 57 (NGC 6720)
The Ring Nebula

Planetary Nebula in Lyra
RA 18h 53m 36s  Dec +33° 02' 00"

[Messier Index]



This image of M57 was captured on the 4th September 2023 by Mike Lancaster. The image comprises 100 x 1.5 second exposures taken using an Altair Hypercam 26C at 300 gain (plus darks, flats and flat darks), through an Orion Optics UK AG12 Astrograph mounted on an EQ8 mount. A 0.95x Wynne Corrector and Astronomik CLS-CCD filter were also employed. Images were acquired using SharpCap, and the processing was entirely performed in PixInsight.   Image Credit: Mike Lancaster.




DDAS members Brian Dodson and Mike Lancaster captured this image of M57 on the night of Sunday 21st May 2023 at the Society's Flamsteed Observatory. It is a live stack captured with an Altair GPCAM 327C through an 80mm Altair Starwave ED refractor. The refractor was piggybacked on a 10" Meade SCT and mounted on an NEQ6 mount. Altair Capture was used to acquire the image, and no guiding or processing was employed. The image is as seen on screen at the time.   Image Credit: Brian Dodson & Mike Lancaster.




Mike Lancaster captured this image of M57 on the 21st July 2021. It is comprised of a stack of three 5 minute exposures taken with a Mallincam Universe camera attached to a 10-inch Meade ACF SCT on an EQ-8 mount. A 0.5x Mallincam focal reducer was also used. The camera was set to a gain of 16dB, a gamma of -20, a contrast of 0, and noise reduction on. No guiding, flats or dark frames were used. Stacking and processing was done in Nebulosity 3.   Image Credit: Mike Lancaster.




This image of M57 was obtained by Peter Branson from a series of 2 second and 10 second one-shot colour images taken over several nights in May 2016. Over 250 separate images were then combined and processed in Nebulosity. The separate images were taken with a ZWO ASI224-Cool high frame rate camera through a Hutech IDAS light pollution filter attached to a Celestron C9.25 Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope. The telescope arrangement was mounted on an HEQ5 mount.  Image Credit: Peter Branson.



Mike Lancaster produced this image of the Ring Nebula on the 26th September 2014. It is a stack of four 30 second exposures taken with a Mallincam Xtreme X2 colour camera at AGC 3 through a 10" Meade LX200 ACF SCT on an NEQ6 PRO mount using an MFR-5 focal reducer and Astronomik CLS CCD filter. The setup was un-guided. Image capture was using Miloslick Mallincam Control software. Some processing was performed in Nebulosity v3.2. Additional processing was performed in Photoshop Elements using Gradient Xterminator and Astronomy Tools.  Image Credit: Mike Lancaster.




Chris Newsome took the following wide-field image of The Ring Nebula on the 15th July 2006. He used a Celestron C8-NGT telescope with a Canon EOS 300D camera and an Astronomik CLS filter. The image is comprised of 8 frames of 300 seconds exposure each at 200 ASA. This set-up was auto-guided using a Skywatcher 80T telescope, Meade DSI camera, GPUSB guider interface and MaximDL. The images were also calibrated and combined in MaximDL, and then processed in CS2 (using GradientXTerminator, curves, levels, high pass and overlay) before being converted to JPEG format.  Image Credit: Chris Newsome.




The following image of M57 and the surrounding region was taken by Chris Newsome on the 15th October 2005.
Image Credit: Chris Newsome.




Chris Newsome took the following image of M57 on the 27th June 2005 using his Celestron C6-N and a Meade Deep Sky Imager.  Image Credit: Chris Newsome.



The following image of M57 in Lyra was taken by Simon Allcock, Adrian Brown and Chris Newsome on the evening of 7th/8th June 2005. It was taken through Simon's 8" LX90, with Chris' Meade Deep Sky Imager and Adrian's 0.5 focal reducer! The image was processed using Registax and Photoshop.  Image Credit: Simon Allcock, Adrian Brown and Chris Newsome.



Chris Newsome took the following picture with his new Meade Deep Sky Imager on the 6th June 2005.  Image Credit: Chris Newsome.



Adrian Brown took the following image of The Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra on 28th May 2005. The image was taken with a C11 SCT at F6.3 and an ATK-2HS camera. K3CCDTools was used to capture and stack the 21 individual frames that were taken, each of 45 seconds exposure. Maxim DL 4.10 was used to adjust brightness and contrast. He also used Maxim DL's Lucy-Richardson deconvolution filter to sharpen detail in the nebula. Adrian comments: 'I'm really pleased with how this one came out and I prefer this image to the colour version that I did last time'.  Image Credit: Adrian Brown.



Adrian Brown took the following image of the Ring Nebula in Lyra (M57) in the early hours of the 8th May 2005. The image was created by stacking twenty-four 40 second exposures taken at f/10 with a Celestron C11 and an ATK-1C camera.  Image Credit: Adrian Brown.



Tony Razzell produced the following image of M57 (seen at lower centre as a 'star' with a hole in it) in 2004. It is a combination of four 10 second exposures taken with an Audine camera through a 300 mm telephoto lens.  Image Credit: Tony Razzell.


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