The Object of the month for May is Messier 57.
This nebula was discovered by
the French astronomer Charles Messier while searching for comets in late January 1779. Messier's report of his independent discovery of
Comet Bode reached fellow French astronomer Antoine
Darquier de Pellepoix two weeks later, who then independently
rediscovered the nebula while following the comet. Darquier later reported that
it was "...as large as Jupiter and resembles a planet which is fading" It would
be entered into Messier's catalogue as the 57th object. Messier and German-born
astronomer William Herschel speculated that the
nebula was formed by multiple faint stars that were unresolvable with his telescope.
Messier 57 is located south of
the bright star Vega,
which forms the north western vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism. The nebula lies about 40% of the distance from
Beta (β) to Gamma (γ) Lyrae, making it an easy target for amateur astronomers to find.
The image below was captured by me on the night of May 6.
It is comprised of 30 x 60 second exposure photos that were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker. The stacked image was mucked about with in photoshop to bring out detail.
The image below is a Hubble image of M57.
This image shows how to find it.
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