After many minor difficulties such as the LX200 claiming that M57 was below the horizon we were able to take this image on June 3, 1998. We eventually manually centered the telescope on the nebula. This images was taken with the help of Adam Maloof and Cindy Blaha.
This image of m57 was taken with a 20sec blue exposure, 15sec green exposure, and a 10sec red exposure. The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula. A planetary nebula is the result of the death of a low mass star. The colorful gases that you see in this photo are the ejected matter of the dead star. In the center of a planetary nebula is the remnants of the star a dense inner core of largely carbon ash.
This page was created on June 10, 1998 by Michele Nichols