The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, NGC 650/651, the Barbell Nebula, or the Cork Nebula,[is a planetary nebula in northern constellation Perseus. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included in Charles Messier's catalog of comet-like objects as number 76. It was first recognised as a planetary nebula in 1918 by the astronomer Heber Doust Curtis. However, there is some contention to this claim, as Isaac Roberts in 1891 did suggest that M76 might be similar to the Ring Nebula (M57), being instead as seen from the side view. The structure is now classed as a bipolar planetary nebula (BPNe), denoting two stars which have burst, leaving neutron star or white dwarf remnants and luminous envelopes. From Wikipedia.
The M76 images were captured at the 2022 Okie-Tex Star party near Kenton, OK. A ZWO ASI533 mounted on to an AT6RC was used to capture the images. The above image is made up of 45 five minutes exposures (total of 225 minutes). Processing was preformed using AstroArt 8 sp1. The AT6RC was mounted on a AP900 mount and auto guided using an 80mm refractor and a ZWO ASI 120 piggybacked on the AT6RC using PHD2 guide software.
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