The so-called Dumbbell nebula is a bright planetary nebula. The glowing cloud of gas was shed by it´s (here invisible) central star at the end of its "active" life. I think the background noise could be much reduced by using a flat field image during processing...

Telescope:	Vixen R130S, 5.1" Newton Telescope on Super Polaris GEM, 20mm eyepiece
Camera	Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera
Exposure:	33 x 8sec
Date:	6th, October 2001
Processing:	Subtraction of dark frame, adding 4x8 single images in Photoshop. The 4 stacks were averaged.

All images © Philipp Salzgeber