M27 the dumbbell nebula

[moonshinegnomie]

this is the future of our sun in a few billion years. about 10000 years ago a sun type star at the end of its life shed its outer layers and became a white dwarf. the nebula is expanding at about 31 Km/s and is 1360 light years away

This is a total of 20 hours of exposure time thru my telescope over several nights in my backyard just outside of austin texas

[SheltieLover]

1. Beautiful!

Ty for sharing with us.

[2naSalit]

2. Amazing!

Thanks for sharing!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. What an astonishing exposure! So beautiful. ...n/t

[George McGovern]

4. Whoa, moonshinegnomie! Incredible image! Thanks for this unique perspective.

According to Wikipedia —The Dumbbell Nebula was the first such nebula to be discovered, by Charles Messier in 1764. It is at a distance of 1360 light-years.
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"For most space objects, we use light-years to describe their distance. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (9 trillion km). That is a 6 with 12 zeros behind it!

When we use powerful telescopes to look at distant objects in space, we are actually looking back in time."

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/light-year/en/
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[moonshinegnomie]

5. another way at looking at just how far away a light year is

we launched the voyager space craft 49 years ago in 1977.
its traveling at over 10 miles a second.(38000 mph)
this november it will be 1 light day away from earth.
at this rate it will take over 17,000 years to go 1 light year. the closest star is 4 light years away