I remember fondly how I was observing the Dumbbell Nebula last year through the 8 inch dob.

Hot summer nights, mosquito’s, dew and the dog chilling next to me. I also remember getting lost trying to find it and blaming Vulpecula for being an annoying constellation. I was happy to read later that this area of the sky can indeed be a bit confusing when you’re manually starhopping.

Shortly after I managed to take some pictures with my phone, resulting in a greenish vague fuzz. Later that year I also managed to image it with my 224MC which looked way better. The picture below is with the 533 MCP and even if I only had 40 minutes of data due to clouds rolling in, the result is very satisfying.

This was the first planetary nebula that Charles Messier discovered in 1764 and is around 1360 light-years away from us.