Messier 97 (M97), also known as the Owl Nebula, is a well known planetary nebula (Dying Star) located in Ursa Major (Big Dipper) constellation.
The nebula lies at a distance of 2,030 light years from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 9.9.
It has the designation NGC-3587 in the New General Catalogue.
Messier 97 occupies an area 3.4 by 3.3 arc minutes in apparent size, which corresponds to a spatial diameter
of 1.82 light years. It was named the Owl Nebula because of its appearance in larger telescopes,
which reveal two dark patches that look like the eyes of an owl.
These were first sketched by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse in 1848.
Our sun will meet a similar fate in about 6 billion years from now..
I captured this wider angle shot in the Narrow Band light of Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen III, Oxygen III, mapped out RGB. Taken from my backyard
in the city of Dayton, Ohio on 05-06-2020. I used my C6 F5 Newtonian telescope, Baader Coma Corrector, Bisque MyT Robotic Mount, QHY183M Cooled monochrome
Cmos Camera, Bin 1×1, HA/03/03, 60 x 180 second exposures, 3 hours total exposure time. Captured in the Sky X camera/imaging capture software,
stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, aligned channels in Maxim DL, and final Processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CC2020.
