When it comes to photographing nebulas, each tends to present its own sort of challenges.  Some are really dim and require a ton of exposure time to bring out the details.  Others can be really bright which makes it hard to get much detail because the image gets blown out from the brightness.  NGC 7009, the Saturn Nebula falls into that latter category and this photo is my recent shot of it from a rare night out in my observatory.

This small (half a light year in diameter) planetary nebula designated NGC 7009 is better known as the Saturn Nebula as it has a ringed appearance similar to the planet Saturn.  The ring part of this Saturn Nebula is faint in this picture but its definitely there!

The challenge of shooting this particular nebula is that it is so bright, anything more than a 15 second exposure (this shot was composed of a couple dozen 15 second exposures) and I would blow out the nebula and lose all detail.  That in tern makes it hard to pick up on the less bright details because I can’t get long exposure times on it.  But considering the challenge of it, I would say I didn’t do a half bad job with it!  And you can still make out some detail in the nebula.

Since the question always gets asked what sort of telescope I use and what kind of equipment do I need to get a shot like this, as with all of my astrophotography posts, I’ll link to my telescope setup for astrophotography post that can fill you in on all of those details you are curious about.

Stay tuned as I have one more new nebula photo to share from my recent night out in my observatory!

Share this with any space enthusiasts you know!  Also, if you enjoy seeing cool pictures of space objects like I do, follow me on Twitter (@pcnerd37) because I am always retweeting shots taken by my fellow amateur astrophotographers.