best large.

I have to say that as far as Hubble exposures of planetary nebulas go, IC 1454 is not the most visually rewarding. I've searched for some amateur astrophotography pictures and it seems a bit better suited for that. It's big and diffuse and pretty blurry up close. It also seems somewhat faint.

Anyway, the data had a fairly low s/n ratio but I figured I'd try it anyway. I used to hate the median filter but I'm beginning to see some merits to it in certain situations. It definitely helped smooth out the noise without destroying details, which I masked off, retaining the integrity of the little stars and that smudge which I believe is a background galaxy.

There are some neat planetary nebulas which are simply perfect round circles or bubbles but they are usually too big to fit on a single WFPC2 exposure. By dumb luck it seems this one wasn't quite aimed correctly on the first attempt which resulted in me being able to create a slightly more complete picture of it.

Red: hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci + hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci

Green:hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci + hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci

Blue: hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_07501_10_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_07501_60_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci

North is NOT up, it's 36.5° degrees counter-clockwise from up.

It looks like someone plucked a few of the petals off, but I can see why this was named the water lily. This is another in the preplanetary (or protoplanetary) nebula category.

Slight rant warning:

I call them preplanetary because protoplanetary is too easily confused with protoplanetary disks which have nothing to do with protoplanetary nebulas. I'll be happy on the day astronomers finally do away with the "planetary" part of the name entirely. I have to have hope that someday that will happen for the sake of reason and scientists like reason. ...Right?

I probably should have removed the diffraction spikes since the two exposures make them kind of awkward. I might do that later.

Red: hst_08210_01_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci

Green: pseudo

Blue: hst_06565_03_wfpc2_f606w_pc_sci

North is up.

This nebula is named after Jacoby and Fulton who, along with others, were rewarded with the discovery of this tiny planetary nebula buried in the haze of stars known as the loose globular cluster Palomar 6. Finding the few existing planetary nebulas in globular clusters is something like the astronomer's ultimate game of Where's Waldo. Congratulations, guys. Anyway, this curious blob (or perhaps the name itself: "What's a JaFu??") managed to catch my attention in the archive so I went ahead and processed it.

Obviously, wideband filters barely reveal the little feller at all. The nebula is mainly visible in the F656N (H-alpha) & F502N (OIII) data. I toned the wideband data down quite a bit to tame the various bright stars.

Red: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci + hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci

Green: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci

Blue: ACS/WFC F502N (jb1w02010_drz)

North is up.

Ring Nebula in Lyra. This planetary nebula is quite small (~3 arcmin) but even more so when viewed at a wide angle. The two bright stars are Sulafat and Sheliak in Lyra. Best viewed in original size.

Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 65 Quadruplet (LRGB)

Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)

Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel

Guide scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet

Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)

Mount: Atlas EQ-G

Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.

L - 8min 8x1min (1x1)

RGB - 4min each 4x1min (1x1)

Small but bright and pretty, IC 4663 is even more interesting than it seems at first glance. A quick search instantly directs one to various papers pointing out that the central star for this planetary nebula is, in fact, a Wolf-Rayet star.

Note that data is discreetly missing from the corners.

Red: hst_08773_12_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_07501_65_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08773_12_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is up.

M27 / NGC 6853 - Dumbbell Nebula

The Dumbbell Nebula is located in the constellation of Vulpecula and at a distance of approximately 1360 light years from earth.

The nebula is classed as a Planetary Nebula, there is a central star to this Nebula, which is probably as a result of a star that exploded and shed it's outer layer resulting in the formation of the nebula itself.

This is my first image with my new Astro Tech 8 Inch Ritchey–Chrétien, the image details are as follows:

Canon 500D Modified (Imaging Camera)

Astro Tech 8" Ritchey–Chrétien with AT2FF Field Flattener

Orion Star Shoot Autoguider (Guide Camera)

Celestron C80ED Apo Refractor (Guide Scope)

27x 5 Min Exposures at ISO 800

41 Dark Frames

43 Flat Frames

Images Acquired with BackyardEOS

Images Stacked and Pre-Processed with Nebulosity 2

Images Post Processed with Photoshop CS5

Small but bright and pretty, NGC 6884 wasknown to be a bright, round disk until Hubble took a look at it, revealing complex details. It's a shame that many planetary nebulas are so hard to see. It would appear even more bright if it were not for our Milky Way's interloping dust.

Red: hst_06119_41_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci+hst_08390_08_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_08390_08_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08390_08_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is up.

Again, I used data from the WF chips in combination with the PC chip data in order to create a slightly more complete view of a nebula. As usual, I’d still like if it were not cut off on the side, but you learn to take what you can get. :)

Red: hst_07501_09_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci + hst_07501_09_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci

Green: hst_07501_09_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci + hst_07501_09_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci

Blue: hst_08773_08_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_07501_09_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_08773_08_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci

North is NOT up, it's 8.7° counter-clockwise from up

A fairly obscure planetary nebula that's actually rather pretty. There seems to be a ring of knots around the center. I'm not sure the central star is visible in this image. There is one that might be it but it's off center and it wouldn't be the first time a central star failed to appear in some f656n data.

This is a single channel of data with some artificial color applied. Corners are discreetly missing data.

All channels: hst_08345_33_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

NGC6741 is quite small but also quite bright and various details are easily discerned. It has a somewhat rectangular or parallelogram shape from our vantage point and the skinny, somewhat linear structure around the center has a curved shape implying that it may encircle the star all the way around though we can only see the side facing us.

Kaler mentions that the central star is unseen but it is clearly visible here and I do see it in the Hubble image he provided with his description. It is quite easily noticed in the f555w data even without sharpening. It is indeed invisible in the other two sets of data, f658n and f502n.

I don't know who called it the Phantom Streak or why it is called that. Most small nebulas like this don't receive common names. It's a cool name though so we may as well go with it.

Red: hst_08773_04_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_07501_04_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08773_04_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is up.

Lots of details in this one even though it's small. There is also an extremely faint arc to the left of M 2-40 but it's so faint it is only slightly above the noise.

This is a single channel of data that has been subjectively colorized.

Data is missing at the corners because I like to present things north up instead of rotating the picture to fit in a box.

All channels: hst_08345_23_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

NGC 6565 looks to me like a miniature Ring Nebula. I'm rather fond of these nebulas with rather rainbow-like gradients from blue in the center to red at the perimeter.

I made an effort to reduce the size of the stars which would otherwise be bright green due to the green channel being f555w.

Red: hst_08773_01_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_07501_01_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08773_01_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is NOT up, it's 45° clockwise from up

Well, this looks like a preplanetary nebula to me, but we all know looks can deceive. I do know that there is no strict line between a preplanetary and a planetary nebula so it is understandable that I wonder why this one is is not classified as preplanetary. Anyway, it's also one of those weird planetaries with a WC Wolf-Rayet central star. It wouldn't be the first time I've been thrown off by one of those. Strange. It might not even be a planetary nebula but rather more precisely an ejecta shell. Oh well, another day, another nebula.

Red: HST_9463_80_ACS_HRC_F606W_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: HST_9463_80_ACS_HRC_F435W_sci

North is up.

If you look at enough planetary nebulas you know they like to be random and avoid fitting comfortably into categories. One feature, however, seems rather common--a bright central core with sharply defined edges surrounded by another layer which is roughly half as bright and less sharply defined. Interesting, reticulated patterns can be seen in both layers and they are usually roughly elliptical in shape if not perfectly circular. IC 2448 is a typical example. It seems to lack FLIERs, however. (I only recently realized FLIERs is an acronym. Fliers as a rather simple noun seems to fit them even without the complexity of an acronym.)

Corners are discreetly missing data.

Red: hst_11122_03_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci + hst_06119_49_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci

Green: hst_06119_49_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08390_14_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is up.

I thought this was a faint galaxy when I first saw it in the archive because it looked like it had spiral arms. It's not a very visually appealing nebula but the collection does not discriminate! Apparently there's more to this one than Hubble's exposures were able to capture. The PC chip where most planetary nebula are imaged seems to unfortunately not be very good at picking up faint details. I don't understand this.

Red: hst_06119_53_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: hst_06119_53_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Soap Bubble in Space. I have wanted to image this planetary nebula since it was first discovered in 2008. The field of view is only 12 arc minutes wide, no cropping. It’s a total of 44.5 hours of data that I captured from 23 nights of imaging from August 11-Oct. 22, 2020. Captured with my Ceravolo300mm at f/9 with an SBIG Aluma 694 CCD camera.

The true colours of the nebulosity in space are due to the combinations of gas emissions coming from them and everything along our line of sight like galactic dust. This Soap Bubble nebula is the blown off atmosphere from a single dying star. It is emitting hydrogen-alpha which is red and oxygen which is blue-green. The combination of these light colours is yellow/gold as seen in the outer rim of the bubble. I used three narrowband filters, Hydrogen-alpha, oxygen and hydrogen-beta. The blue hydrogen-beta makes the hydrogen-alpha gas appear pink but only when there is not much galactic dust in the way.

Technical details:

telescope: Ceravolo300 at f/9

Camera: SBIG Aluma 694

Filters: Astrodon RGB, Ha, Hb, OIII

Total 44.5 hours

Location: Personal observatory, BC, Canada

Information on this nebula and how it can be mistaken for a double star is here. I reduced the glare from the star it gets confused with. I'd prefer the focus to be on the nebula itself rather than the relatively bright nearby star.

Red: hst_08773_09_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_07501_11_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08773_09_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is NOT up

Instead of using pseudogreen like I usually do when presented with only two channels to work with I put the f555w data into both the green and blue channels and adjusted the blue one to look similar to NGC 2867 since that one actually does have three wideband channels and they are somewhat similar looking objects. It's still pseudo-something, I'm just not sure what.

Red: hst_06119_13_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci

Green: hst_06119_13_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Blue: hst_06119_13_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci

Another teeny planetary nebula. Here, a slightly perturbed figure-eight and some faint concentric rings are visible. What are these shapes, really? For an idea, I would take a look at a closer planetary nebula which is a bit easier to see. The Etched Hourglass seems related.

Triangles of data are missing from the lower left and right corners.

Red: hst_08345_37_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: hst_08345_37_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

Vy 2-3 is pretty round but not perfectly round. The Lemon Slice remains the reigning champion of roundness. "Vy" is a new name to me so I had to look it up. This seems to be another case of, "Wait, this isn't just a star. The emission lines are weird." So the Vy is for Vyssotsky, who discovered it while surveying stars.

All channels: hst_08345_16_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

Hen 1-1 is small, faint, and kind of fuzzy looking. Still, there are some details to discern, such as the two small structures separated and flanking the nebula to the lower left and upper right. I wouldn't try to read too much into the other patchy bits of dim noise around the nebula. Some of those slightly brighter spots are the result of imperfect cosmic ray removal. Parallel, diagonal linear structures are just readout noise.

Single channel of data subjectively colorized. Data is unavailable for three flat triangular shapes in the corners.

All channels: hst_06347_34_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

Robert Jonckheere was searching for double stars. Some of them turned out to be planetary nebulas, like J 900. They are both in his double-star catalog so I wondered if he ever realized his mistake. I looked it up and he did go back to them later with a larger instrument and discovered they were actually nebulas.

As usual, data is absent from the corners so I could maintain the north-up orientation of the object. The color is subjectively added.

All channels: hst_06347_13_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

One of the rare planetary nebulas found within a globular cluster. Wikipedia informs me that there are only four others discovered so far. Here is a great article which includes a human eye color approximation view, because people are always very interested in that. Personally, I don't see what is interesting about that, because a lot of space objects are just pale green without any color variation to our eyes. I'm happy we have instruments to aid our vision of the cosmos.

I went with the filters which the nebula shined the most brightly in so that light from the cluster wouldn't overpower the light from the nebula. Since planetary nebulas tend to glow rather brightly through a couple of narrowband filters, it's possible to see the nebula much more clearly using them.

Red: hst_06751_03_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

Green: hst_06751_01_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

Blue: hst_06751_01_wfpc2_f336w_pc_sci

North is up.

Note the H in H 2-1 is different from Hen which are from Henize's catalogs. Henize cataloged this one as Hen 2-194. The H in this case refers to Haro. There's a paper about its discovery here but it's in Spanish. Anyway, that confused me a bit when I was looking at the various designations for this one so I thought I'd mention it.

Red: hst_08345_25_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: hst_08345_25_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

A nice, small, bright bipolar planetary nebula. It closely resembles Minkowski 2-9 in its structure, which is interesting. Planetary nebulae are still like snowflakes though, they are all very unique (for the most part). This catalogue is small, containing only three nebulae, the most famous being Fleming 1, which is one of my favourite planetary nebulae. There is data available for Fg 2 in the ESO archive as well which I plan on checking out.

These data were collected for proposal 8345: Multipolar Bubbles and Jets in Very Low Excitation Planetary Nebulae

This image is enlarged by 150%

Red: hst_08345_13_wfpc2_f658n_wf

Green: pseudo

Blue: hst_08345_13_wfpc2_f656n_pc

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula (which doesn't look very round here) NGC 5307. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: This Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5307, a planetary nebula which lies about 10000 light years from Earth. It can be seen in the constellation Centaurus (The Centaur), which can be seen primarily in the southern hemisphere. A planetary nebula is the final stage of a Sun-like star. As such, planetary nebulae allow us a glimpse into the future of our own Solar System. A star like our Sun will, at the end of its life, transform into a red giant. Stars are sustained by the nuclear fusion that occurs in their core, which creates energy. The nuclear fusion processes constantly try to rip the star apart. Only the gravity of the star prevents this from happening.

At the end of the red giant phase of a star, these forces become unbalanced. Without enough energy created by fusion, the core of the star collapses in on itself, while the surface layers are ejected outward. After that, all that remains of the star is what we see here: glowing outer layers surrounding a white dwarf star, the remnants of the red giant star’s core.

This isn’t the end of this star’s evolution though — those outer layers are still moving and cooling. In just a few thousand years they will have dissipated, and all that will be left to see is the dimly glowing white dwarf.

Nice, faint halo around this one. Halos are actually very common features for planetary nebulas but they often aren't included because they are so faint. In Hubble's case, a lot of the time the halo is just too big to be included in the frame.

This is a single channel of data which I colorized.

All channels: hst_08345_10_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

This tiny nebula only had one channel of data so I colorized it to a sort of blue-green nebula color.

When I finally get done finding all these in the archive you'll see why I like processing the tiny ones too. I am making a big collage of them all and it looks really cool with the itty bitty ones filling the space between the larger ones.

Original size is zoomed 200% from original pixels.

All channels: hst_08345_01_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

Sorry it's cut off on the lower edge. That's just how things are. Some interesting tidbits are written about it in its Wikipedia article. Apparently it's approaching our position. Or perhaps we are approaching it. Either way, the distance between us and NGC 3195 is lessening over time.

Red: hst_06119_16_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci + hst_06119_16_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: hst_06119_16_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci + hst_06119_16_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci

North is NOT up

Owl nebula (Messier 97) shot in LRGB. 6*10min per channel at 2x2 binning.

At the end of this season the first night of the summer without astronomical darkness was still barely dark enough to get 4 hours of exposures of this wonderful (but small) nebula.

Gear: HEQ5, C8, .63x reducer, OAG+Lodestar, EFW2, Baader LRGB filters, SXVR-H18

SW: MaxImDL, AstroTortilla, PixInsight

Another day, another tiny planetary nebula. If you ever wanted to know what PN M 1-61 looks like, here is your chance. There seems to be a whole set of these tiny ones in the archive for a reason. Maybe I should find out why, but, then, you know, I'd have to read instead of process pictures. Decisions, decisions.

Red: hst_08307_03_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: hst_08307_03_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

Blue: hst_08307_03_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci

North is up.

Just another little planetary nebula. It looks like a very tiny spiral galaxy. You could say it is an actual spiral nebula, what spiral galaxies used to be called.

This view is zoomed 150% from original pixels.

Red: hst_08345_05_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci

Green: Pseudo

Blue: hst_08345_05_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci

North is up.

Download full size image 5K here: www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/54697104186/sizes/o/

See license below.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/j.Roger/AndreaLuck CC BY

NASA/ESA JWST Webb Space Telescope

Title: Infrared imaging of bipolar features in planetary nebula

Target name: NGC 6072 (Star, Planetary nebulae nuclei)

Date: 2024-07-29

Instrument: NIRCam

Filters: f070w, f187n, f212n, f356w, f405n-f444w, f444w-f470n

Colours Assigned: Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Orange, Red

PI: Macarena Garcia Marin

PI Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA - JWST

Proposal ID: 6554 www.stsci.edu/jwst-program-info/program/?program=6554

Product IDs:

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_f444w-f470n

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_f405n-f444w

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f356w

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f212n

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f187n

jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f070w

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/j.Roger/AndreaLuck CC BY

Feel free to share, giving the appropriate credit and providing a link to the original image: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

This is my last photograph captured from my observatory.

I have always been impressed by the photography made by the Hubble Space Telescope, so I wanted to pay homage to it simply using my modest equipment

So I used my SW Esprit 150 f7 telescope and my QHY268M CMOS with the Ha, SII and OIII filters accumulating 10h in 5-minute subshots.

Now I want to capture more signal in Halpha to bring out the faint features around the eye.

Hope you like it!

Edited European Southern Observatory image of the planetary nebula Abell 33.

Original caption: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured this eye-catching image of planetary nebula Abell 33. Created when an aging star blew off its outer layers, this beautiful blue bubble is, by chance, aligned with a foreground star, and bears an uncanny resemblance to a diamond engagement ring. This cosmic gem is unusually symmetric, appearing to be almost perfectly circular on the sky.

Editor's note: this is a breathtaking collage created from this gorgeous panel image: www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/8076983365/in/photostream

Check out the "NASA Thinks Pink" Flickr gallery:

www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157625045060125/

Main caption: This gallery shows four planetary nebulas from the first systematic survey of such objects in the solar neighborhood made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The planetary nebulas shown here are NGC 6543, also known as the Cat's Eye, NGC 7662, NGC 7009 and NGC 6826. In each case, X-ray emission from Chandra is colored purple and optical emission from the Hubble Space Telescope is colored red, green and blue.

In the first part of this survey, published in a new paper, twenty one planetary nebulas within about 5000 light years of the Earth have been observed. The paper also includes studies of fourteen other planetary nebulas, within the same distance range, that Chandra had already observed.

A planetary nebula represents a phase of stellar evolution that the sun should experience several billion years from now. When a star like the sun uses up all of the hydrogen in its core, it expands into a red giant, with a radius that increases by tens to hundreds of times. In this phase, a star sheds most of its outer layers, eventually leaving behind a hot core that will soon contract to form a dense white dwarf star. A fast wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere, pushes it outward, and creates the graceful, shell-like filamentary structures seen with optical telescopes.

The diffuse X-ray emission seen in about 30% of the planetary nebulas in the new Chandra survey, and all members of the gallery, is caused by shock waves as the fast wind collides with the ejected atmosphere. The new survey data reveal that the optical images of most planetary nebulas with diffuse X-ray emission display compact shells with sharp rims, surrounded by fainter halos. All of these compact shells have observed ages that are less than about 5000 years, which therefore likely represents the timescale for the strong shock waves to occur.

About half of the planetary nebulas in the study show X-ray point sources in the center, and all but one of these point sources show high energy X-rays that may be caused by a companion star, suggesting that a high frequency of central stars responsible for ejecting planetary nebulas have companions. Future studies should help clarify the role of double stars in determining the structure and evolution of planetary nebulas.

These results were published in the August 2012 issue of The Astronomical Journal. The first two authors are Joel Kastner and Rodolfo Montez Jr. of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, accompanied by 23 co-authors.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

Read entire caption/view more images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/pne/

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI Collage: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Read more about Chandra:

www.nasa.gov/chandra

p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!

_____________________________________________

These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...

Image of a nebula taken using a NASA telescope -

Original from NASA. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

NGC 3132 is a striking example of a planetary nebula. This expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, is known to amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere as the "Eight-Burst" or the "Southern Ring" Nebula.

NGC 3132 is nearly half a light-year in diameter, and at a distance of about 2,000 light-years is one of the nearer known planetary nebulae. The gases are expanding away from the central star at a speed of 9 miles per second.

This image, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, clearly shows two stars near the center of the nebula, a bright white one, and an adjacent, fainter companion to its upper right. (A third, unrelated star lies near the edge of the nebula.) The faint partner is actually the star that has ejected the nebula.

Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/image-article/southern-ring-nebula/

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Image of a nebula taken using a NASA telescope -

Original from NASA. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

For nearly three years, I swore I would never do any deep sky photography during periods of intense moonlight - simply because I didn't think it was really possible to catch the selected target and acquire enough raw data to have a usable image. Well, last night sure proved me wrong!!

Last night, I took the telescope out mainly to shoot the moon. In the process, I had a fit of curiosity, and wondered if I could do any deep sky stuff. Sure enough, test exposures on the Dumbbell Nebula were showing a lot of nebulosity despite a 97% illuminated moon.

At that point, I set my sights on the Blinking Planetary nebula in Cygnus, and went to town. I am very pleased with the results after processing!!!

39 30-second exposures captured with a Nikon D5100, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, calibrated with 45 dark frames. Further processing done in Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5.5

Deep Sky Stacker unfortunately removes the EXIF data in the stacking process.

The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years. This object was the first planetary nebula to be discovered; by Charles Messier in 1764. At its brightness of visual magnitude 7.5 and its diameter of about 8 arcminutes, it is easily visible in binoculars, and a popular observing target in amateur telescopes. This image taken using a Meade LX-90 12" telescope with a Canon T3i at prime focus.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula (which doesn't look very round here) NGC 5307.

Original caption: This Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5307, a planetary nebula which lies about 10000 light years from Earth. It can be seen in the constellation Centaurus (The Centaur), which can be seen primarily in the southern hemisphere. A planetary nebula is the final stage of a Sun-like star. As such, planetary nebulae allow us a glimpse into the future of our own Solar System. A star like our Sun will, at the end of its life, transform into a red giant. Stars are sustained by the nuclear fusion that occurs in their core, which creates energy. The nuclear fusion processes constantly try to rip the star apart. Only the gravity of the star prevents this from happening.

At the end of the red giant phase of a star, these forces become unbalanced. Without enough energy created by fusion, the core of the star collapses in on itself, while the surface layers are ejected outward. After that, all that remains of the star is what we see here: glowing outer layers surrounding a white dwarf star, the remnants of the red giant star’s core.

This isn’t the end of this star’s evolution though — those outer layers are still moving and cooling. In just a few thousand years they will have dissipated, and all that will be left to see is the dimly glowing white dwarf.

Edited European Southern Observatory image of the planetary nebula Abell 33. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured this eye-catching image of planetary nebula Abell 33. Created when an aging star blew off its outer layers, this beautiful blue bubble is, by chance, aligned with a foreground star, and bears an uncanny resemblance to a diamond engagement ring. This cosmic gem is unusually symmetric, appearing to be almost perfectly circular on the sky.

Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC

Camera: Hutch modified Canon Rebel XT

Exposure: 30x2 minutes, 25 dark frames

ISO: 1600

Guiding: Meade DSI Pro and PHD

Location: Long Island, NY

Processed with MaxDSLR and Photoshop, with Astronomy Tools

NGC6164-65 is a Planetary nebula in the southern constellation Norma, around 4200 light years from us.

When discovered, the two bright outer lobes could not be seen to be connected, so they were separately cataloged. That's why the one object is generally referred to as both NGC6164 and NGC6165.

This image was taken remotely using the MRO 16" f8 RCOS telescope in 2010, using an Apogee Alta U9000 camera and Astrodon Series 1, Red, Green and Blue filters to create a natural colour image.

This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed celestial images ever made. The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp images from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz.

The image shows a fine web of filamentary "bicycle-spoke" features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth.

Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO).

For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/iridescent-glory-of-nearby-...

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It's the blue-green object in the center.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula NGC 6326. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: The Hubble Space Telescope captured this beautiful image of NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a central star nearing the end of its life. When a star ages and the red giant phase of its life comes to an end, it starts to eject layers of gas from its surface leaving behind a hot and compact white dwarf. Sometimes this ejection results in elegantly symmetric patterns of glowing gas, but NGC 6326 is much less structured. This object is located in the constellation of Ara, the Altar, about 11,000 light-years from Earth. Planetary nebulae are one of the main ways in which elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are dispersed into space after their creation in the hearts of stars. Eventually some of this outflung material may form new stars and planets. The vivid red and blue hues in this image come from the material glowing under the action of the fierce ultraviolet radiation from the still hot central star. This picture was created from images taken using the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The red light was captured through a filter letting through the glow from hydrogen gas (F658N). The blue glow comes from ionised oxygen and was recorded through a green filter (F502N). The green layer of the image, which shows the stars well, was taken through a broader yellow filter (F555W). The total exposure times were 1400 s, 360 s and 260 s respectively. The field of view is about 30 arcseconds across.