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Sharpless 221 and 216

Two neighbouring nebulae in the northern constellation of Auriga illustrate different outcomes for an ageing star. The nebula on the right, #221 in the Sharpless catalog, is a supernova remnant, created when a star exploded catastrophically. The nebula on the left, Sharpless 216, is a planetary nebula created when an ageing star expelled its outer layers.

This image is an integration of a total of 22 hours of data captured with a William Optics Redcat51 telescope and ASI2600MCPro camera. An Optolong L-eXtreme filter was used and all post-processing was carried out in PixInsight.

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Uploaded on June 4, 2025