View allAll Photos Tagged PlanetaryNebula
NGC 6369
My take on this beauty. This one was very interesting to process because there were 6 different filters, 3 of which were narrow band. Roughly equivalent colors as follows:
Red: IR+NII
Green: 555w+Ha
Blue: 439w+OIII
A little background: Again, I used the usual NASA/Hubble Heritage/STScI image to give me ideas on how to execute my version. While theirs did a very good job of showing all the complex structures of the NII regions, it didn't show the fainter areas of H-a
much at all. It also had a strange but interestingly nacreous color scheme and I'm not entirely sure how it arrived at that. I was very tempted to make the NII regions a more aesthetically pleasing blue or red color instead of the green but then it would be very difficult to tell it from the other narrow band spectra.
Specific data used:
Red
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f814w_wf_drz
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f658n_wf_drz
Green
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_drz
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_drz
Blue
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f502n_wf_drz
hst_09582_01_wfpc2_f439w_wf_drz
North is NOT up.
Despite its eerie appearance, Caldwell 90 seems to be a fairly typical planetary nebula. It was discovered by John Herschel on April Fool’s Day in 1834 and later cataloged as NGC 2867. Ironically, he originally thought he may have discovered a new planet. More people than John Herschel have been fooled by the appearance of these nebulae, which is why the term “planetary nebula” was coined in the first place — they often look like planets when viewed with small telescopes.
Caldwell 90 was formed in the late stages of the evolution of a Sun-like star. After having steadily produced energy for several billion years through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, the star underwent a series of energy crises when its supply of hydrogen began to run low. Without the outward force previously created by the energy production, gravity took over and caused the star’s core to contract. The extra pressure allowed the star to produce a heavier element — carbon — in its core. The synthesis of carbon generated a lot more energy than the fusion of hydrogen into helium, which helped the star to not only overcome gravity to expand once again but led the star to swell up a hundred-fold to become a red giant.
Eventually the red giant’s outer layers of gas were ejected. Meanwhile, the star transformed from a cool giant into a hot, dense star that radiates ultraviolet light and a fast wind of particles that move outward at around 6 million miles per hour. The stellar wind and ultraviolet light interact with the layers of gas that the red giant ejected to create the glowing, spherical shell we see today.
This Hubble image was taken in visible and infrared light using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 as part of a survey of planetary nebulae. Caldwell 90 is located about 6,000 light-years away toward the southern constellation Carina and is best viewed in the late summer or early autumn from the Southern Hemisphere, though it can be spotted low in the sky during the late winter or early spring from Northern Hemisphere locations near the equator. It’s so tiny that it will look like a star even in fairly large telescopes, so use high magnification to get the best look. The magnitude-9.7 nebula will resemble a tiny turquoise stone embedded in the night sky.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 90, see:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9738c11/
Credit: Howard Bond (STScI) and NASA/ESA
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Looking Down a Barrel of Gas at a Doomed Star
The NASA Hubble Space Telescope captured the sharpest view yet of the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M57). In this October 1998 image, the telescope looked down a barrel of gas cast off by a dying star thousands of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula; the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.
The colors are approximately true colors. The color image was assembled from three black-and-white photos taken through different color filters with the Hubble telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Blue isolates emission from very hot helium, which is located primarily close to the hot central star. Green represents ionized oxygen, which is located farther from the star. Red shows ionized nitrogen, which is radiated from the coolest gas, located farthest from the star. The gradations of color illustrate how the gas glows because it is bathed in ultraviolet radiation from the remnant central star, whose surface temperature is a white-hot 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees Celsius)
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)
M27 - A dying star
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 arc-minutes, it is easily visible in binoculars, and a popular observing target in amateur telescopes.
The nebula was formed when an evolved, red giant star ejected its outer envelope near the end of its lifetime. The expanding cloud of gas becomes visible once the hot core of the star, visible near the center, is exposed and the high-energy, ultraviolet light from the core ionizes the cloud.
Unmodified Canon 6D DSLR at the Prime Focus of my Home-Built 16 inch Diameter Newtonian Telescope.
ISO 3200, a single 90 second exposure, at my observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
“SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE -- HUBBLE TELESCOPE REVEALS STELLAR DEATH PROCESS -- This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 7027 shows remarkable new details of the process by which a star like the Sun dies.
New features include: faint, blue, concentric shells surrounding the nebula; and extensive network of red dust clouds throughout the bright inner region; and the hot central white dwarf, visible as a white dot at the center.
The nebula is a record of the star’s final death throes. Initially the ejection of the star's outer layers, when it was at its red giant stage of evolution, occurred at a low rate and was spherical. The Hubble photo reveals that the initial ejections occurred episodically to produce the concentric shells. This culminated in a vigorous ejection of all of the remaining outer layers, which produced the bright inner regions. At this later stage the ejection was non-spherical, and dense clouds of dust condensed from the ejected material.
When a star like the Sun nears the end of its life, it expands to more than 50 times its original diameter, becoming a red giant star. Then its outer layers are ejected into space, exposing the small, extremely hot core of the star, which cools off to become a white dwarf. Although stars like the Sun can live for up to 10 billion years before becoming a red giant and ejecting a nebula, the actual ejection process takes only a few thousand years.
The NGC 7027 photograph is a composite of two Hubble images, taken in visible and infrared light, and is shown in "pseudo-color.
Credit: H. Bond (STScI) and NASA”
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/1996/05/395-Image.html
Credit: HUBBLESITE website
astroa.physics.metu.edu.tr/Astronom/PN/NGC7027.HTM
Credit: Middle East Technical University/Astrophysics-Physics Department website
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap960117.html
Credit: Astronomy Picture of the Day website
2018 data, reprocessed in SIRIL.
Total exposure time: 42 mins
Telescope: Tele Vue-60 APO refractor
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
One of the most famous and easily spotted planetary nebulae, the Ring is in the constellation Lyra and passes very close to the zenith from my latitude. This was shot from my very light polluted backyard.
Stack of 22 185s guided sub-frames taken with a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/10 with an Atik 314L+ color CCD and light pollution filter. Initial processing and stacking in Nebulosity; final processing in PixInsight and PS CS 5.1.
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.
The name "planetary nebula" refers to the round shape that many of these objects show when examined through a small telescope. In reality, these nebulae have little or nothing to do with planets, but are instead huge shells of gas ejected by stars as they near the ends of their lifetimes. 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 NASA's 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 appears near the edge of the nebula.) The faint partner is actually the star that has ejected the nebula. This star is now smaller than our own Sun, but extremely hot. The flood of ultraviolet radiation from its surface makes the surrounding gases glow through fluorescence. The brighter star is in an earlier stage of stellar evolution, but in the future it will probably eject its own planetary nebula.
The colors in this image were chosen to represent the temperature of the gases. Blue represents the hottest gas, which is confined to the inner region of the nebula. Red represents the coolest gas, at the outer edge. The Hubble image also reveals a host of filaments, including one long one that resembles a waistband, made out of dust particles that have condensed out of the expanding gases. The dust particles are rich in elements such as carbon. Eons from now, these particles may be incorporated into new stars and planets when they form from interstellar gas and dust. Our own Sun may eject a similar planetary nebula some 6 billion years from now.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/729/news_release/1998-39
Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)
On 2018-11-10, the periodic comet 38P/Stephan-Oterma was at its closest point to the Sun on this orbit. The comet has an orbital period of about 38 years, so it will be a while before it gets this close again. It also only gets about as close to the Sun as the orbit of Mars, so it is still quite a way out there.
Because of this distance, it doesn't develop much of a tail, nor does it reach naked eye visibility. In these frames, it passes slowly through part of the constellation Gemini near NGC 2392 -- a planetary nebula known as either the Clown Face Nebula or the Eskimo Nebula.
This is a stack of 22 frames taken from roughly 0905 UT to 0950 UT on that night. Skies were excellent in Joshua Tree, CA. All images were shot with an Atik 314L+ color CCD attached to a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with Hyperstar. Initial processing in Nebulosity; frame alignment and processing in Pixinsight; frames were finished and assembled into this animation in PS CS 5.1.
The Helix Nebula (NGC7293) in Aquarius: The Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebula to Earth and one of the largest planetary nebula discovered so far. A planetary nebula is one in which a star has shed off it’s atmosphere during the stellar aging process. This planetary nebula, often called the “Eye of God”, was formed when a dying star (white dwarf) shed its outer atmosphere, which is now expanding out in a large ring at a rate of 25 km per second. The central white drawf star is releasing so much energy that it is lighting up this entire nebula. As the star cools, the nebula will fade away from view. Our Sun is expected to do the same in about 5 billion years.
This is a single 30 minute exposure using conventional slide film. I used an old Olympus OM1 35mm film camera attached to a Meade LXD75 8" Schmidt Newtonian Telescope for focal length of 812mm at f/4. While the mount automatically tracked the object, I hand guided corrections (to fix tracking errors) using another telescope (Orion guidescope) attached to the main scope. Total cost of this setup was under $1,700 U.S. For details on how you can capture the universe in brilliant color visit my website at Petes Astrophotography
To buy prints and other gifts using this photograph please visit Cosmic Colors
A planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius, approximately 700 light years from earth. Planetary nebulae are the remains of modestly sized stars, similar to our sun, which, having expended their nuclear fuel shed mass and collapse to white dwarfs. The Helix Nebula, because it is relatively close to earth--compared to other planetary nebula--appears very large, approximately one half the diameter of the full moon. This image was created at the General Nathan Twinning Observatory (GNTO), the dark sky site of The Albuquerque Astronomy Society (TAAS) with a Celestron C-11 HD w/ focal reducer operating at 1960 mm f.l. and f/7, an SBIG ST4000XCM camera and a Losmandy G11 mount. Fifteen x 10 minute subs were created at -10 C, along with darks and flats. Processing was done in DSS and PS CS2. You can purchase a print of this image at: alan-ley.artistwebsites.com/ Thanks for looking!
An infrared, pseudogreen, red light view of a beautifully symmetrical bipolar preplanetary nebula (are we just calling these 'young' planetary nebulas now?). The blue appearance is due to the filters used. Note the blue outflows are glowing, ionized gas, not dust. There is a very faint but curious stray bit of gas pointing directly back to the central star down and to the left of the nebula.
Thumbnails in the HLA are of awful quality and obviously created with some error but the actual data (acquired through DADS) is very nice looking.
This object was also imaged for proposal 10536.
Red: ACS/WFC F814W
Green: Pseudo
Blue: ACS/WFC F606W
North is NOT up. It is 9.77° counter-clockwise from up.
Toss this one in the pile of astronomical things which look like eyes. At first glance this closely resembles someone's iris. After closer inspection we are forced to realize it's really a bunch of glowing gas.
Red: hst_08773_03_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_07501_03_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08773_03_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is NOT up, it's 35.8° clockwise from up
Messier 26 open star cluster, at right, a bright binocular/telescopic star cluster, along with the fainter and small globular star cluster NGC 6712 at upper left, which itself is paired with the faint planetary nebula IC 1295, the greenish spot left of NGC 6712. All are in the constellation of Scutum, embedded in the rich Scutum Starcloud. The bright red star at top is S Scuti.
This is a stack of 8 x 6 minute exposures at f/4.4 with the Canon 6D at ISO 800 and TMB 92mm Apo refractor with the Borg 0.85x flattener/reducer. Taken from the winter home near Silver City, New Mexico.
This Hubble Space Telescope image captures the beauty of the moth-like planetary nebula NGC 2899. This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a nearly 40,000-degree-Fahrenheit white dwarf at the center. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and sculpting the nebula, which is pinched in the middle by a fragmented ring or torus – looking like a half-eaten donut. It has a forest of gaseous “pillars” that point back to the source of radiation and stellar winds. The colors are from glowing hydrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies approximately 4,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela.
Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-celebrates-hubbles-...
This is the 100th planetary nebula I have processed! Woo hoo. Lots of strange and interesting structures in this one. The dust lane looks like it's corkscrew-shaped but I might be imagining that.
I used some WFC3/UVIS data for the nebula itself and some older WF/PC to finish off the corners to expand the star field so the composition wasn't so closely cramped around the nebula.
Red: hst_11580_03_wfc3_uvis_f814w_sci + hst_11580_03_wfc3_uvis_f658n_sci
Green: hst_11580_03_wfc3_uvis_f656n_sci + hst_11580_03_wfc3_uvis_f555w_sci
Blue: hst_11580_03_wfc3_uvis_f555w_sci
Outer corners only:
Red: hst_06364_01_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci + hst_06347_25_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_07285_06_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci + hst_06364_01_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_06364_01_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
North is up.
NGC6164-65 is a Planetary nebula in the southern constellation Norma, around 4200 light years from us.
An interesting and unusual extra to NGC6188, a very large and interesting nebula centered in Ara beyond the top of this frame.
When this dual-lobed planetary nebula was discovered in 1854 by John Herschel, the two outer lobes did not appear connected, so each was cataloged individually.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Galaxy Images from NASA's newest James Webb Space Telescope revealed for the first time Cosmic Cliffs, the previously invisible areas of star birth in the Carina Nebula. The rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but James Webb Space Telescope's extreme imaging capability can now capture these fascinating events.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
A planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, approximately 1360 light years from earth. Planetary nebulae are the remains of modestly sized stars, similar to our sun, which, having expended their nuclear fuel, shed mass and collapse to white dwarfs.
Data was obtained with a C11-HD and focal reducer, operating at f/7 and 2000 mm. The camera was an SBIG ST4000XCM camera, with an IDLH LP2 light pollution filter and the mount was a Losmandy G11. 25 x 10 min integrations, processed with DSS and Photoshop CS2. Image cropped for aesthetics. A very good night in Albuquerque. Once in a row!
You can purchase prints of my images at:
This image, taken by my old friend Trravis Rector, shows the Soap Bubble Nebula, a planetary nebula formed bya dying star.
Credit: T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF
Original (and you want to see the orignal!): www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im1059.html
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Galaxy Images from NASA's newest James Webb Space Telescope revealed for the first time Cosmic Cliffs, the previously invisible areas of star birth in the Carina Nebula. The rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but James Webb Space Telescope's extreme imaging capability can now capture these fascinating events.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Taken from New Mexico Skies Observatory using an SBIG STL-6303 camera and 51-cm RCOS telescope on a Software Bisque PME 1 Mount
Luminance - 41 x 20 min exposures
LINK
Other images from this series:
1. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817758/
2. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51913339650/
3. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912722131/
4. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817498/
5. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911758022/
6. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911757837/
NOTE
1. The marked star in the geometric centre at Mag 19.8 is the probable source of the nebula.
2. The Soap Bubble Nebula, or PN G75.5+1.7, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus, near the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich using an Astro-Physics 160 mm refractor telescope with which he imaged the nebula on June 19, 2007 and on July 6, 2008. The nebula was later independently noted and reported to the International Astronomical Union by Keith B. Quattrocchi and Mel Helm who imaged PN G75.5+1.7 on July 17, 2008. The nebula measures 260″ in angular diameter with a central star that has a J band magnitude of 19.45.
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/
Famous planetary nebula in Vulpecula.
Stack of five 30 second frames at ISO 6400 with dark frame subtraction.
You think you know someone and then you look at them in infrared and then wonder what else they aren't showing you. Seriously, I have seen this picture of the same object at least a dozen times in the past so I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary when I looked at the data in the archive. But there are a whole bunch of infrared observations where these weird, geometric arcs or ovals show up! Fascinating. Note they are a bit blurry as data from NICMOS tends to be. Sometimes I wonder if all the processing I do to its data is right or not but there really are some interesting things there even though it's so messy.
Upon further inspection of the nebula I get a good sense of its dimensionality and to me it appears that we are looking down at an hourglass from a 45° angle or so. I think this is why processing is so addictive. I stare at things for a long time and come away with a much better understanding than I previously had and maybe even some extra information that wasn't in a press release at some point.
Oh, I got rid of the large, distracting diffraction spikes as best I could while doing the least harm to the object that I could manage.
Red: HST_11331_03_NIC_NIC3_F160W_sci + hst_11093_01_wfpc2_f675w_pc_sci + hst_11093_01_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11093_01_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci + hst_11093_01_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11093_01_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_06353_08_wfpc2_f487n_pc_sci
North is up.
M57 The Ring Nebula, A Cheerio in Space, Dying Star, Planetary Nebula
QHY5IIL CCD camera & 8" SCT Scope
12 minute exposure
15 (of 30) usable lights (60s), 10 darks, 20 flats, 20 bias. Canon EOS 450D DSLR prime focus, ISO1600. Baader Neodymium filter and coma corrector. Sky-Watcher 150P Explorer on EQ3-2 mount. DeepSkyStacker > PixInsight > PhotoShop.
It's easy to see why this bipolar nebula is called the Retina Nebula. It is one of the most detailed in the archive. Because it's so close, fine details which might otherwise be lost are visible.
The reticulated pattern of dust, which appears to form a toroidal shape around the star puzzles me since it is not quite like anything else. There are dust structures in other bipolar nebulas, just not quite like this. They remind me of NGC 7027 but with finer structure and not in the form of dual rings. The NGC 7027 image has the advantage of near infrared data from NICMOS, which makes it much easier to see its dust structures. Knowing that makes me wonder what an Infrared image might reveal in IC 4406.
Also visible is a faint arc above the core which is also present below but less well defined. I didn't notice it in many other images of this nebula because it's so faint and easily lost to the background.
Both pc and wf data was combined from two different years (2001 & 2002).
Red: f658n
Green: f656n
Blue: f502n
North is up.
Sh2-91 - The other veil nebula in Cygnus.
Campbell's Hydrogen Star - a planetary nebula (with the WC Wolf-Rayet star HD184738 at its centre) - the red "star" above left of centre.
Imaged at the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh's Remote Observatory (ASERO) in Trevinca, Spain on 2024-08-27/28
Equipment:
95mm f4.4 EDPH APO
TS-Optics 94 mm f/4.4 (flattener /reducer) triplet Apo Refractor
TS-Optics ToupTek Color Astro Camera 2600CP
L-eNhance filter
58x300s exposure.
Captured in NINA.
Stack by the ASERO team.
Processed with GraXpert, Siril, Gimp and AstroSharp.
NGC 2346 is another nebula of lepidopteran persuasion. Several nebulas are referred to as butterfly nebulas for their symmetry and structures which appear like spread wings of said insects. Maybe we should pick one to designate as Moth Nebula to help add some variety. I'm sure we could throw in some dragonflies and other insects as well. On that note, a recent discussion at Starship Asterisk caused me to realize planetary nebulas are likened to bugs in many ways.
This nebula almost perfectly fit on the WFPC2 chips. Some dim parts were cut off at the edges but that's it. I especially like how the PC chip fits unobtrusively into the square corner on the upper central side of the nebula.
Red: hst_07129_05_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_07129_05_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci
Blue: hst_07129_05_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up. It's 38° clockwise from up.
Somehow I ended up looking at this version of NGC 6826 in which the red channel was badly blown out and I also wondered if I could pick and arrange the different filters available to not end up with a lime green nebula. Yet another version, done for Chandra so we can see the x-rays emitting from the nebula, seemed awfully grainy and had a sharpening halo around the center of the nebula.
Inspired by these two, I have created my own version. Also, since the data was readily available, I did my own x-ray version too.
Red: hst_11122_14_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_08390_07_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11122_14_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is up.
Here's another one of those rainbow colored nebulas, aptly named the Spirograph Nebula.
Red: hst_08773_10_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_06353_09_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08773_10_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is up.
This hazy Hubble image captures a portion of the planetary nebula Caldwell 2, or NGC 40. A shell of gas is expanding outward from the nebula’s central star, which has reached the final stage of its life. Energy from the dying star is causing the surrounding shell of gas to glow. As the planetary nebula disperses over the course of tens of thousands of years, it will leave behind a stellar corpse called a white dwarf, the small, dense core of the star.
Caldwell 2 was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel in 1788 and is located roughly 3,500 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. It is often difficult to spot because the glowing gas shell appears very small in the sky and has an apparent magnitude of only 12.3, making it the faintest object in the catalog. Caldwell 2’s bright central star can wash out the cloud of gas, so a telescope is needed to resolve the nebula. Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will have the best view of Caldwell 2 in early winter. The nebula can also be seen from equatorial latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere and is easiest to spot in early summer.
This image of Caldwell 2 was taken in 1995 as part of a survey of nearby planetary nebulae. Astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 to search for central stars that have close companion stars. These companion stars are helpful to astronomers because they can be used to determine the distance to planetary nebulae like Caldwell 2.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit: www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-caldwell-catalog
I spent a long time on this. I still don't think it's perfect but I think it's time to move on. It's easy to get lost in pixel-sized details zoomed up 300% staring at noise and wondering how or if to remove it, especially with a high resolution image.
Anyway, I have been wondering if sometimes Hubble does get to take a picture just because something is so striking it deserves a beauty shot. I got the answer, which is yes, when I read the proposal for this one. (Hi, Zolt.) Aesthetic majesty took priority over science for a few observations. The other two were the venerable Horsehead and more obscure but no less wonderful Arp 142, which resembles a penguin. NGC 5189 has been said to resemble an eastern dragon. Together, they form a trio of creatures. A horse, a penguin, and a dragon; an unlikely gathering except in space where imagination reigns supreme.
Colors are as follows but with F502N occupying the green channel a little for that extra brightness since blue is such a dark color.
Red: F814W + F673N
Green: F606W + F657N + F502N
Blue: F502N
North is NOT up.
This familiar planetary nebula has been well photographed and publicized being called many things along the way. It is the Helix Nebula or NGC 7293.
CRL 618 aka the Westbrook Nebula is a protoplanetary nebula in the constellation Arguia. Imaged in high resolution by HST's now defucnt High Resolution Channel, with lower resolution UVIS narrowband imagery to provide color. ( R = F673N (SII), G = F658N (NII), B = F656N (H-alpha) )
Notes:
-North is up
-Corners are cloned data
-HRC imagery has been resampled 2x
Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hypatia Alexandria
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-...
Can't say I added much to what's already been done with this nebula, but I thought I'd try and see what happened especially since I haven't tried a bipolar nebula before.
There's no wideband data available which makes me wonder how it would look with the usual f555w filter included.
I am guilty of increasing the brightness of the blue channel greatly compared to the others because I like the indigo color produced. Still, blue is OIII as usual and it's interesting that it seems to lag behind the rest of the nebula so emphasizing it makes that easier to see. I had to double check that my f502n data was really from the same year because it seemed like it was from an earlier time frame.
There are also some repeating concentric structures in this one that look sort of like light echoes. It would be easy to check if there were any images available from another year but I couldn't find any.
Red: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f673n_wf_sci + hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci + hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f631n_wf_sci
Blue: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up.
This serene view captures a portion of the planetary nebula NGC 246, also known as Caldwell 56. Planetary nebulae are named such because when they were first observed through early telescopes, they resembled planets. However, a planetary nebula is actually the final stage in the evolution of a star that is similar to our Sun. As the star reaches the end of its life, pulsations and strong stellar winds eject the star’s envelopes of gas. The hot, compact core of the star emits intense radiation, causing the gas to glow for a few tens of thousands of years before the nebula dissolves, leaving behind a white dwarf like the one at the center of Caldwell 56.
The image above was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. It provides a detailed look at the structure of Caldwell 56 and its central star. These observations, and subsequent ones, were taken to better understand how the wispy filaments in a planetary nebula change over time.
Caldwell 56 is located approximately 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Cetus. It has an apparent magnitude of 8 and appears as a faint, circular glow through moderately sized telescopes. A few stars appear superimposed on the nebula. The best time to observe Caldwell 56 is during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn and the Southern Hemisphere’s spring. It was discovered by the English astronomer William Herschel in 1785.
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Westphal (California Institute of Technology), and K. Werner (Eberhard Karls Universitat); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
A smaller but pretty cool nebula. Looks a lot like a goat's eye to me. I was a little surprised to find this. It's definitely a hidden treasure.
Red: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
All channels, stars only (white): hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f588n_pc_sci
North is NOT up. It is 27° counter-clockwise from up.
The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the apple-core nebula) in Vulpecula is a planetary nebula about 1400 ly away. Taken in two specific wavelengths of light and mapped to color, the nebula has an apple-core like red (Halpha) region, bluer outer lobes (OIII) and a fainter outer shell beyond that.
Combined in the HOO Palette with only 1 hour total.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Astro-Tech 65 Quadruplet
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.
Halpha - 6x5min (2x2)
OIII - 6x5min (2x2)
The Helix Nebula is a faint, large planetary nebula. Because of the size of this target, I used the Maksutov Cassegrain to go after this target. This scope is a 127mm aperture f12 design, yielding approximately 1500 mm focal length. As always, I use the full spectrum modified Pentax K10D camera with a peltier cooler.
This is a stack of 37 subs of 10 minutes at 400 ISO taken over the course of 3 nights. Because the target is so low on the southern horizon I have not been able to get a lot of data. Also, there have been challenges of transparency, focus, dew, and tracking.
All this is made more complex by this target being so dim that even at the above-noted sub details, the main ring structure of the nebula was not visible. Only at higher ISO settings or longer exposures does the structure appear. I was not prepared to deal with either step.
These challenges have given a lot of poor subs that I finally found a way to stack without compromising too much of the results.
Each evening's data was calibrated with Maxim as a set. The resutls were debayered and then stacked in Pix Insight. The rest of the processing included some white balance, DBE, ATrous Wavelet, and a lot of stretching. There's a lot of residual background noise. Not much I can do about these without more subs.
While I'd like to get more data, there's a storm coming and it's not likely that I'll get another chance to add more information on this target until next year.
Here's the data on the plate solve:
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+0.000026298746 -0.000210188757 +0.170099721975
+0.000210359351 +0.000026359299 -0.360611368341
+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 0.763 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 97.159 deg
Focal ............. 1460.00 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 40' 23.0" x 25' 38.0"
Image center ...... RA: 22 29 38.160 Dec: -20 48 21.19
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 22 30 21.938 Dec: -21 09 59.06
top-right ...... RA: 22 30 43.145 Dec: -20 29 53.52
bottom-left .... RA: 22 28 32.909 Dec: -21 06 47.33
bottom-right ... RA: 22 28 54.590 Dec: -20 26 42.64
Another planetary nebula. Very similar to NGC 6826 but it's interesting to compare the subtle differences. Why are they so similar? Why are some parts not similar? Are they aligned for some reason?
Processing notes: Most of the nebula was on three filters but the edges were cut off around the outer part of the fainter spheroid. Something like this but I used a different set for the WFPC2-PC squares. There's more than one way to process a nebula...
Red: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
Extra bits around the edge that were missing from the PC: hst_10822_02_wfpc2_f547m_wf_sci
North is up.
NGC 2371 is a little odd in a couple of ways to me.
First, it has two entries in the New General Catalogue because astronomers (specifically, William Herschel) thought it was two objects at the time.
Second, for processing, the HLA only has one channel worth of data for the left side which is why it appears dimmer and monochrome in my version. I also processed it slightly differently than I usually do because I liked the look with the f656n filter in the red channel along with the f658n. Usually I like those two to be in separate channels.
Anyway, it's a picturesque nebula. It has a very soft appearance which I quite enjoy. HubbleSite has a nice article on the nebula if you are interested in learning more about it.
Red: hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci + hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_06119_08_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + some f555w ACS/WFC data for the center (jb5724020)
Blue: hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up.
Another nice little planetary nebula with only one channel available. I colorized it.
All channels: hst_08345_59_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
North is up.
Subject: M27 -- Dumbbell Nebula
Image FOV = 192 minutes by 144 minutes (3.2 degrees by 2.4 degrees)
Image Scale = 8 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2008/08/21 and 2008/08/22
Location: near Halcottsville, NY
Exposure: 19 x 5 minutes = 1h35m total exposure, ISO800, f/4.8
Filter: Baader Astronomik UHC (RGB)
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 6-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus (dark frames, bias frames, and flat frames); Aligning and combing with Registar; Levels adjustment, cropping/resizing, JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. No sharpening or noise reduction.
Remarks:
Aug 21 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading 20.75 at start, 20.08 at end (gibbous moonrise);
Aug 22 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading at start, 21.41, 21.45 in middle (moon below horizon), 20.70 at end (gibbous moonrise).
Here's another little planetary with two very close filters (f658n & f656n) but there is significant enough distinction between them to generate a more colorful image. I did end up boosting the saturation a bit with an adjustment layer. I usually don't do that.
Small amounts of data is missing from the corners.
Red: hst_08345_48_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_08345_48_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
North is up.
Lying in the constellation of Vulpecula, M27, also known as the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula that lies about 1,360 light years away. It was formed by the ejection of matter from a dying star. This was the first planetary nebula discovered by Charles Messier in 1764.
This is a difficult subject to image from Sydney. Imaging was done between 20 and 33 degrees altitude. Consequently, seeing and transparency were always less than optimal while gathering the data. Even so, the faint extension of nebulosity is visible.
Full Resolution: www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/146168301/original
This is a 11 hr LHaRGB (180, 210, 90, 90, 90) image. Lum subs were 15 mins, Ha subs were 30 mins unbinned.
FOV is 36.1 x 23.8 arcmins @ 1.05 arcsec/pixel.
Takahashi TOA-150 refractor @ F11.7 (FL=1760mm) using an SBIG STL 11000M camera
Much large image in my blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2013/05/dead-stars-society-c...
I made a poster format presentation out of my photos of exploded stars. In this collection, there are two types of dead stars, Planetary Nebulae and Supernova remnants. Images are not in scale.
Individual images, with some information, can be found from my portfolio: astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/