PLANETARY NEBULA M97, THE OWL NEBULA (NGC 3587)

M97 is in an area of the sky densely populated with galaxies. 

This image shows colorful M97 along with the spiral galaxy M108.  Numerous other galaxies are present in this image, most of them rather faint.  Scroll down for a zoomed-in crop from this image, showing M97 only.

(click on image for larger size):

This image was taken on 5/19/07 with a Williams Optics Zenithstar 105mm refractor at f/5.6, and an SBIG ST-10XME CCD camera.  Integration times were 9x2min for each filter (Red, Green, and Blue) and 9x5min for the Luminance filter.  The image was taken from the top of Kitt Peak.