My Notes: This was my first deep sky object that I tried to photograph once I’d gotten my Fujifilm XF100-400mm lens. I chose m57 because of it’s distinctive shape. I felt that if I was going to photograph something I’d never seen before, it should be something stunningly unique. I learned a lot from this first attempt, namely, just how unbelievably small something is 2300 light years away. After shooting in what I knew was the right area of the sky for several minutes, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t seeing anything at 400mm (560 full frame equiv). I was expecting it to be instantly noticeable, taking up 500 pixels at least. After trying all kinds of exposures I started zooming in on the screen and looking around and I finally saw the tiniest little ring amid stars, many of which were larger. The Ring Nebula on my 26.1 megapixel camera at 400mm only fills up 47 pixels. It was both amazing and disappointing. I feared all deep sky objects would be this small and instantly felt I needed better equipment. Fortunately there are many other closer Messier Objects that have met my expectations of what my setup should be capable of.

Darquier Notes: “It is very dull, but perfectly outlined; as large as Jupiter and looks like a fading planet.”

Messier Notes: (January 31, 1779) “A cluster of light between Gamma & Beta Lyrae, discovered when looking for the Comet of 1779, which has passed it very close: it seems that this patch of light, which is round, must be composed of very small stars: with the best telescopes it is impossible to distinguish them; there stays only a suspicion that they are there.” [This description is considered highly inaccurate and led to many astronomers trying to resolve it into individual stars until as the late-nineteenth century. It is perhaps this description that led to the inaccurate term ‘Planetary Nebula’.]