My colleague Johan Fynbo and I recently purchased a small portable telescope called "Seestar S50" which makes astrophotographing so easy it almost feels like cheating. This is an image of the planetary nebula The Dumbbell Nebula, taken with only 2 minutes of exposure time from my backyard in the middle of Copenhagen.
Despite their name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. In fact it is gas that has been expelled from a dying low-mass star, lit up by the central white dwarf that is the remnant of the star.
The green color comes from oxygen that is ionized, while the red color shows neutral hydrogen.
