This is another shot of the well known Ring Nebula, M57, in the constellation Lyra. The image was constructed from 32 ninety second frames taken on the night of 8-Aug-2009, through my 8" newtonian reflector using a Canon Digital Rebel XT.

At about the four o'clock position relative to the nebula, and about 1/3 of the way from the nebula to the edge of the frame, you can see a faint smudge - you may need to adjust your monitor's brightness or contrast to see it. This is the spiral galaxy IC 1296, and at approximately magnitude 15 it is about the faintest object I can ever hope to capture with my current equipment. The distance of IC 1296 from Earth is not known. M57 lies within the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of about 2,000 light years from Earth. IC 1296 is, of course, far away from our galaxy, likely many hundreds of millions of light years from Earth. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about IC 1296.