M76, The Little Dumbbell Nebula, a planetary nebula  (NGC650)
Planetary nebula M76 is one of the fainter Messier objects. It is most commonly known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula because of  it's passing resemblance to M27. It also is sometimes called the Cork Nebula (for the bright cylindrical core), or the Butterfly Nebula for the "wings" either side of the core, or occasionally the Bow Tie nebula. At one time it was given two NGC numbers as it was suspected to be a double nebula with two components in contact. Perhaps a better way to look at and understand it is as a cross section of a doughnut. The "cork" is the doughnuts hole, and the wings are the semi transparent doughnut.  The wings were probably puffed away during the end stages of the parent star's Red Giant phase. The doughnut hole may have been created more violently as ejecta from the polar regions of the parent star. Today the central "star" is the core of the former star, an earth size white dwarf remnant radiating at some 60,000 degrees. It is slightly bluish central star in this image. It glows at only a magnitude 16.2, three times fainter than we see Pluto. It will cool down over the coming tens of billions of years, eventually being a cold dark stellar cinder.

The distance to M76, as with many planetary nebulae, is poorly known, with some consensus settling around 3,400. Accordingly, the long dimensions of the cork would be about 1 light year long. It can be found high in the sky south of the Cassiopeia "W", just at the upper east end of Andromeda.

10" F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain reflector, Baader coma corrector, Modified Canon 40D at Prime focus, with a Hutech light polution filter
Exposures of 500 sec, at ISO 1600
 8 photos each at the above setting and exposure, averaged together, then brightness and contrast enhanced