While most of my images are in broadband/LRGB, I also image in narrowband. I decided to take another look at Messier 57 both in broadband/LRGB and narrowband to see what the result might be.

Here’s M57 in broadband/LRGB, shot with the Slooh.com Canary 4 Solar System telescope:

This is made up of a number of observations totaling the following:

  • Luminance: 11 min
  • Red: 8 min
  • Green: 8 min
  • Blue: 8 min

There’s a lot of good detail in the nebula itself and the central star is clearly visible. As far as quality goes, it’s pretty much standard quality.

Here’s the narrowband image I took using Telescope Live:

This is pretty much what you would expect from a narrowband image because the filters don’t pick up as much color as broadband and the Ring Nebula isn’t really a narrowband target.

What I do find interesting about this image is the region surrounding the main nebula – you can see a halo around the main nebula and it extends a fair bit beyond the halo. This is surprising because this isn’t visible at all in the broadband image.

Although M57 isn’t typically a narrowband target, the narrowband image reveals features that are not present in the broadband image. I acquired the narrowband image using the following:

  • H-alpha: 20 minutes
  • SII: 20 minutes
  • OIII: 20 minutes

I processed the narrowband image using the Hubble palette (SHO), but that doesn’t make much of a difference here since the colors are so bright.

It’s definitely worth trying narrowband on targets that might not be great narrowband targets but you might be surprised what the narrowband image reveals.