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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.
Check out the "NASA Thinks Pink" Flickr gallery:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157625045060125/
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
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Read more about 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...
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 filter
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
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.
A 'planetary nebula', formed by a 'dying' star puffing off its outer gas layers.
Manually, off-axis guided for 6 x 10 & 6 x 5-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f10.
Subs registered & stacked using DeepSkyStacker software.
Unmodded EOS 40D & Celestron C8 telescope
Imaged using the Bradford Robotic Telescope's Galaxy Camera (Schmidt-Cassegrain Celestron C14 optical tube. 3910mm focal length, 355mm aperture at f/11 with a FLI MicroLine fitted with a E2V CCD47-10. 1k x 1k pixels, each 13um square. Class 2).
Further processing done using FITS Liberator & Pixelmator 3.0 FX.
M27 with data from about 4 more nights of testing in June.
Again, 10 minute subs at 400 ISO. Taken in Menlo Park, CA - deep in a red zone.
Total stack was: 51 lights (best 80% out of 64), 144 Darks, 58 Flat Frames, 22 Dark Flats ,199 Offset/bias, 6 groups based on temperatures from 12C to 17C.
Stacked with DSS 3.3.3 beta 47 with 2x drizzle on a custom frame. Processed with PI using DBE, Masked Stretch, and Histograpm stretch. Couldn't get the plate solve to work.
Camera used: Full spectrum modified Pentax K10D cooled with external peltier device, Baader Moon and Skyglow filter used.
Telescope: Orion 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain (f12)
Mount: Losmandy GM8
Given that I was having a lot of challenges with tracking on this set of data, I'm surprised that I got anything good from them. There are still oblong stars, but it's good for now.
PK 329-02.2
Planetary nebula in Norma
Source: Hubble Legacy Archive
hst_06119_0a_wfpc2_f555w_pc
hst_06119_0a_wfpc2_f814w_pc
M46 from 09 March 2013 using a single exposure with my Canon T4i and Meade 12" LX90.
Messier 46 (also known as M 46 or NGC 2437) is an open cluster in the constellation of Puppis. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1771. Dreyer described it as "very bright, very rich, very large." M46 is about 5,500 light-years away. The planetary nebula NGC 2438 appears to lie within the cluster near its northern edge (the faint smudge at the top center of the image).
M27 as seen overnight on June 18, 2012. I continued my efforts to improve my technique for guiding while the telescope is set up in the back yard.
For this evening's experiments, I added an additional counterweight to the system - giving 5 lbs on the string. This has the effect of giving a stronger east bias. I was hoping that this would eliminate the RA drift problems I've seen. It seems to work well - the only real drift is in DEC.
Also, what I did prior to this shot was tighten up the DEC axis. I inserted a single belleville washer on the axis of the worm gear to assist in taking up lateral play. The effect is that DEC is now much tighter without having to bind on the ring gear. The washer will provide a small amount of spring to the system to act as a pre-load for system as well.
What I did not do was limit Maxim to only guiding in one direction in DEC. I've done this with PHD quite a bit but in this case, I was trying to figure out if the Maxim stiction and backlash settings were enough to fix the problem.
This is a stack of 31 lights on this target. Individual lights are 10 minutes at 400 ISO. Captured with a full spectrum mod Pentax K10D camera with the Baader Moon and Skyglow filter. Scope used was the Orion 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain. Guided with Maxim with the SSAG on a ST80 all on a Losmandy GM8. These are all from one night. Meridian flip was at about 2 am time and I let it keep running until I got up in the morning.
Stacked in DSS from a collection of 39 total lights with 85% kept. I did a 2x custom frame. I thought it might show some of the local detail better. Not sure if it worked well. Maybe a drizzle would have been good since there are so many lights.
In PI: DBE, Masked Stretch, a run of curves, and ACDNR used to try to improve the image. There's a lot of brown in the background - mostly because of being in the city. I may have pushed this processing a little bit too far given the heavy local light pollution.
Image Plate Solver script version 1.51
============================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
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+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 0.764 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -83.842 deg
Focal ............. 1458.61 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 24' 47.5" x 16' 38.8"
Image center ...... RA: 19 59 39.826 Dec: +22 43 07.21
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 19 59 09.665 Dec: +22 56 20.02
top-right ...... RA: 19 58 58.245 Dec: +22 31 40.38
bottom-left .... RA: 20 00 21.523 Dec: +22 54 33.36
bottom-right ... RA: 20 00 09.890 Dec: +22 29 54.04
Edited Spitzer Space Telescope image of the Helix Nebula. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: A newly expanded image of the Helix nebula lends a festive touch to the fourth anniversary of the launch of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This spectacular object, a dying star unraveling into space, is a favorite of amateur and professional astronomers alike. Spitzer has mapped the expansive outer structure of the six-light-year-wide nebula, and probed the inner region around the central dead star to reveal what appears to be a planetary system that survived the star's chaotic death throes.
Large and labeled images in my blog:
astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/09/many-ways-to-die.html
A collection of planetary nebulae and supernova remnants
Note. Images in this poster are not in same scale.
This is a rather beautiful planetary nebula, represented here in two narrowband filters, which are quite different (hence the dramatic colour separation). There are two jets, the one on the left appearing slightly larger.
This data was collected for proposal 6347: A Search for Jets in Planetary Nebulae
This image is rotated 41.8º counterclockwise from North.
Red: hst_06347_03_wfpc2_f658n_pc
Green: pseudo
Blue: hst_06347_04_wfpc2_f656n_pc
Hubble Space Telescope image by way of the European Space Agency of the planetary nebula NGC 6543, which fortunately has a better name: the Cat's Eye Nebula. (That's one big cat!)
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the spiral planetary nebula (which is very strange) IRAS 23166+1655. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This remarkable picture from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows one of the most perfect geometrical forms created in space. It captures the formation of an unusual pre-planetary nebula, known as IRAS 23166+1655, around the star LL Pegasi (also known as AFGL 3068) in the constellation of Pegasus (the Winged Horse). The striking picture shows what appears to be a thin spiral pattern of astonishingly regularity winding around the star, which is itself hidden behind thick dust. The spiral pattern suggests a regular periodic origin for the nebula’s shape. The material forming the spiral is moving outwards a speed of about 50 000 km/hour and, by combining this speed with the distance between layers, astronomers calculate that the shells are each separated by about 800 years.The spiral is thought to arise because LL Pegasi is a binary system, with the star that is losing material and a companion star orbiting each other. The spacing between layers in the spiral is expected to directly reflect the orbital period of the binary, which is indeed estimated to be also about 800 years.The creation and shaping of planetary nebulae is an exciting area of stellar evolution. Stars with masses from about half that of the Sun up to about eight times that of the Sun do not explode as supernovae at the ends of their lives. Instead a more regal end awaits them as their outer layers of gas are shed and drift into space, creating striking and intricate structures that to Earth-bound observers often look like dramatic watercolour paintings. IRAS 23166+1655 is just starting this process and the central star has yet to emerge from the cocoon of enveloping dust.This picture was created from images from the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. Images through a yellow filter (F606W, coloured blue) were combined with images through a near-infra red filter (F804W, coloured red). The exposure times were 11 minutes and 22 minutes respectively and the field of view spans about 80 arcseconds.Links Paper discussing the intriguing AFGL 3068 (PDF format)
Kaleidoscopic version of a Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula IC 4634.
Original caption: This striking Hubble image of the planetary nebula IC 4634 reveals two shining, S-shaped ejections from a dying star. This star, awash in glowing material at the centre of the picture, bloated as it aged and launched its outer layers off into space. The starâs very hot, exposed core has since beamed intense ultraviolet radiation at these lost shells of gas, making them glow in rich colours. This process has been far from orderly or calm, however, as revealed by the distinct, separate waves of thrown-off gases. One is more distant and therefore was spewed first, followed by a more recently ejected tide of matter that formed the tighter S-shape. The result is remarkably symmetric on each side of the central star. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopeâs Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) captured this image of IC 4634, which is found more than about 7500 light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (the Serpent Holder). IC 4634 and other objects like it are known as planetary nebulae due to their appearance through early telescopes as rounded, faintly luminous discs similar to the distant planets Uranus and Neptune. The picture was created from images through five different filters (F487N, F502N, F574M, F656N and F658N) that captured light emitted by different elements in the gaseous features. The total aggregate exposure time was 4000 seconds and the field of view is just 29 arcseconds across.
Out of this world public domain images from NASA. All original images and many more can be found from the NASA Image Library
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/418580/nasa
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the spiral planetary nebula (which is very strange) IRAS 23166+1655. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This remarkable picture from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows one of the most perfect geometrical forms created in space. It captures the formation of an unusual pre-planetary nebula, known as IRAS 23166+1655, around the star LL Pegasi (also known as AFGL 3068) in the constellation of Pegasus (the Winged Horse). The striking picture shows what appears to be a thin spiral pattern of astonishingly regularity winding around the star, which is itself hidden behind thick dust. The spiral pattern suggests a regular periodic origin for the nebula’s shape. The material forming the spiral is moving outwards a speed of about 50 000 km/hour and, by combining this speed with the distance between layers, astronomers calculate that the shells are each separated by about 800 years.The spiral is thought to arise because LL Pegasi is a binary system, with the star that is losing material and a companion star orbiting each other. The spacing between layers in the spiral is expected to directly reflect the orbital period of the binary, which is indeed estimated to be also about 800 years.The creation and shaping of planetary nebulae is an exciting area of stellar evolution. Stars with masses from about half that of the Sun up to about eight times that of the Sun do not explode as supernovae at the ends of their lives. Instead a more regal end awaits them as their outer layers of gas are shed and drift into space, creating striking and intricate structures that to Earth-bound observers often look like dramatic watercolour paintings. IRAS 23166+1655 is just starting this process and the central star has yet to emerge from the cocoon of enveloping dust.This picture was created from images from the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. Images through a yellow filter (F606W, coloured blue) were combined with images through a near-infra red filter (F804W, coloured red). The exposure times were 11 minutes and 22 minutes respectively and the field of view spans about 80 arcseconds.Links Paper discussing the intriguing AFGL 3068 (PDF format)
-Object Info-
Name: NGC7662
Other names: Blue Snowball Nebula
Type: Planetary Nebula
V Mag: 12
-Image Info-
Date: October 22, 2010
Location: Florida Tech, Melbourne, FL
Telescope: Ortega .8m
Imager: FLI 1024x1024
CCD Temp: -20 C
Filters: BVR
Exposure: BVR 5 x 60s each
Total Exposure: 15min
Calibration: 50 bias, 20 dark, BVR 6 flats each
Processing: calibrated in IRAF, combined in Maxim DL, post processed in Photoshop
In the image North is up and East is to the left.
Credit: Student Astronomical Society members Don Schumacher, Andrew Colson, Beverly Watson, Norah Ashoura, Rachel Furtado, Tom Barranger, and Ashley Vargas
M97 and M108 as seen on May 12 & 14, 2013. Taken at Montebello OSP on two nights. There was a third night that had bad data because of clouds and accidentally leaving the camera on ISO 400.
Standard setup: SV4 and cooled Pentax K10D DSLR. My first real use of the cold-finger modified camera outside of the back yard. Thermostat was set to -10C and the EXIF temps read 14-15C on the warmer night and 10C on the cooler night. I also added flocking material to the inside of the flattener to help control off-axis flare. This latter modification seems to help significantly.
Flats were generated using the LED panel but I'm considering that these are not really flat. I'll probably make a flat box repurposing the LED panel to give better and wider flats for consistency.
Getting much better results with flexure, too. I've been able to mostly fix the flexure, now I just have field rotation to control.
Image data is from 20 subs of 1200 seconds duration at 100 ISO. Guided and calibrated with Maxim. Stacked in DSS. Processed in PI.
Here's the plate solve:
Resolution ........ 1.909 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 91.658 deg
Focal ............. 655.81 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.07 um
Field of view ..... 1d 59' 44.1" x 1d 21' 27.4"
Image center ...... RA: 11 12 47.265 Dec: +55 21 17.86
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 11 17 14.653 Dec: +54 19 58.40
top-right ...... RA: 11 17 53.471 Dec: +56 19 32.53
bottom-left .... RA: 11 07 55.809 Dec: +54 22 17.64
bottom-right ... RA: 11 08 05.781 Dec: +56 21 58.91
Edited Hubble Space Telescope montage of two planetary nebulae. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Hubble was recently retrained on NGC 6302, known as the "Butterfly Nebula," to observe it across a more complete spectrum of light, from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared, helping researchers better understand the mechanics at work in its technicolor "wings" of gas. The observations highlight a new pattern of near-infrared emission from singly ionized iron, which traces an S shape from lower left to upper right. This iron emission likely traces the central star system ís most recent ejections of gas, which are moving at much faster speeds than the previously expelled mass.
The star or stars at its center are responsible for the nebula's appearance. In their death throes, they have cast off layers of gas periodically over the past couple thousand years. The "wings" of NGC 6302 are regions of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit that are tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour.
NGC 7027's central star was identified in a new wavelength of light ó near-ultraviolet ó for the first time by using Hubble's unique capabilities. The near-ultraviolet observations will help reveal how much dust obscures the star and how hot the star really is.
This object, which resembles a colorful jewel bug, is a visibly diffuse region of gas and dust that may be the result of ejections by closely orbiting binary stars that were first slowly sloughing off material over thousands of years, and then entered a phase of more violent and highly directed mass ejections. Hubble first looked at this planetary nebula in 1998. By comparing the old and new Hubble observations, researchers now have additional opportunities to study the object as it changes over time.
Helix Nebula (NGC7293). The Helix Nebula is known as a planetary nebula. A planetary nebula is typically a ring of intersteller gas and dust formed by certain types of stars at the end of their lives. This picture was taken October 8, 2007 by Doug Spalding near Butler, MO. Equipment used was a CGE1100 telescope equipped with Hyperstar (F/2) with an Orion DSCI II imager. 25 images X 50 sec each. Stacked with Maxim DL essentials.
Fought with the drive, fought against the weather... and mostly lost. My target was M101 (which I have imaged before) with the hope of determining what the Supernova now looks like. But M101 is low in the North West sky at sunset and that is the worst light pollution direction from my backyard.
Since I've been teaching Astrophotography 101 I feel it is important to represent what is achievable using very modest equipment - including the failures.
Clouds came and I quickly repointed nearly straight up into Lyra where I knew I'd find the tiny object known as the Ring Nebula (aka M57, NGC 6720). After spending about 10 minutes getting it framed near the center of my field of view I was only able to get 3 45-second exposures before dew and clouds ended the evening.
If you've ever watched the TV show "Big Bang Theory" featuring a bevy of nerds you've probably seen this planetary nebula on the wall of the apartment. However that image is big and colorful - it was captured with a large scope at high magnification.
I'll be adding this feature to my "how big is it" series comparing the sizes of various objects in the sky to the moon. The Ring Nebula is about 1.4 arc minutes or 84 arc seconds. How does that compare with Jupiter? Jupiter is about half the size at 49 arc seconds.
I may be deceiving myself, but it appears that despite the horrible light pollution, and imprecise drive alignment I appear to have caught the central star that formed this "planetary" nebula. It's notoriously difficult to see except in large aperture scopes. Of course, it could just be noise since with so few exposures, the noise from 1000 ISO 45 second exposures is not small.
This object is actually very easy to find. It's lined up right between two of the brightest stars in Lyra.
© Copyright 2011, Steven Christenson blog Events
All rights reserved. Curious what "all rights reserved means?" it means that without written permission you may not: copy, transmit, modify, use, print or display this image in any context other than as it appears in Flickr.
This is a restacking of the previous image processed on just a portion of the overall image so that I could use the 3x Drizzle setting in Deep Sky Stacker to try and improve the resolution of the nebula.
Also tried a couple new tools in The Gimp for cleaning up noise, setting the black point etc.
The photo consists of 30x 20 second exposures at ISO1600 on a Canon T1i DSLR at prime focus on a 10 inch SN-10AT telescope using a light pollution filter. 10 minutes total exposure time.
The Helix Nebula is a very large planetary nebula located in Aquarius. It is one of the closest planetary nebula to earth, but the largely Ha emission of the nebula combined with light pollution and poor Ha (infrared) response of my camera made this very difficult to photograph.
Total integrated exposure is a tad under 6 hours. 2min subs.
Taken on Celestron C8 at f/6.3 with a Nikon D800
Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
Location: Locust Valley
Camera: Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT
ISO: 1600
Exposure: 28 images at 10 seconds each.
Each frame was taken unguided at prime focus through the telescope. The frames were stacked using MaxDSLR. Additional processing was handles with Photoshop.
It's a planetary nebula located about 1000 light years away in the constellation of Vulpecula. Like M57, it was created when a star similar to our own hit old age and puffed off it's outer layers.
Without a camera, just looking through the telescope, no colour is apparent. It just looks like a fuzzy patch faintly dumbell shaped, no sign of the outer shell.
The photo consists of 30x 20 second exposures at ISO1600 on a Canon T1i DSLR at prime focus on a 10 inch SN-10AT telescope using a light pollution filter. 10 minutes total exposure time. Photo stacked with Deep Sky Stacker. Cleaned up a little with Gimp.
I tried to take more care with this one, limiting the exposure length to try and keep the stars looking sort of like stars, although they are still kind of squiggly.
This is Minkowski 3-35, a complex-looking little planetary nebula. it is 225% original size (I made it 150% and then decided to do 150% again). This image was taken by the WFPC2 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Alone in the dark!
HST/HLA, NASA/ESA, Nikolaus Sulzenauer
HST_9463_78_ACS_HRC_F606W
HST_9463_78_ACS_HRC_F814W
This is a crop of the 'widefield' version, I'm very pleased with the amount of detail retained and for just 10 minutes worth of data!
Discovered in July 1764 by Charles Messier. M27 lies 1000 light years away.
The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years. (Wikipedia)
This object was the first planetary nebula to be discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. It is a popular target for amateur observation. It is 2.5 light-years across, and is the result of a supernova explosion about 10,000 years ago.
The central star, a white dwarf, is estimated to have a radius which is 0.055 R☉ which gives it a size larger than any other known white dwarf. The central star mass was estimated to be 0.56 M☉. (Wikipedia)
This was a joint project with Ariel.
Press "L" to view large on black
Edited Hubble Space Telescope montage of two planetary nebulae.
Original caption: Hubble was recently retrained on NGC 6302, known as the "Butterfly Nebula," to observe it across a more complete spectrum of light, from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared, helping researchers better understand the mechanics at work in its technicolor "wings" of gas. The observations highlight a new pattern of near-infrared emission from singly ionized iron, which traces an S shape from lower left to upper right. This iron emission likely traces the central star system ís most recent ejections of gas, which are moving at much faster speeds than the previously expelled mass.
The star or stars at its center are responsible for the nebula's appearance. In their death throes, they have cast off layers of gas periodically over the past couple thousand years. The "wings" of NGC 6302 are regions of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit that are tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour.
NGC 7027's central star was identified in a new wavelength of light ó near-ultraviolet ó for the first time by using Hubble's unique capabilities. The near-ultraviolet observations will help reveal how much dust obscures the star and how hot the star really is.
This object, which resembles a colorful jewel bug, is a visibly diffuse region of gas and dust that may be the result of ejections by closely orbiting binary stars that were first slowly sloughing off material over thousands of years, and then entered a phase of more violent and highly directed mass ejections. Hubble first looked at this planetary nebula in 1998. By comparing the old and new Hubble observations, researchers now have additional opportunities to study the object as it changes over time.
Data taken June 2014 in Leicester
SW 150 PDS, EQ5 Pro Synscan GOTO and Modified Canon 600D.
Guiding: SW ST80 and QHY5
Using: BYEOS, PHD, DSS and Photoshop CC.
ISO 400
10 x 60s lights 5 x 60s darks
10 x 30s lights 5 x 30s darks
5 x 120s lights 2 x 120s darks
2 x 180s lights 1 x 180 darks
1 x 240s lights 1 x 240s darks
Vicky Norton
This is a stunning planetary nebula that proves the ESO archive is hiding quite a few treasures (not that that needed proving). Abell 24 is actually a relatively popular target for astronomers in comparison to the other Abell nebulae. The nebulosity is pretty strongly visible in Hydrogen Alpha, but very faint in most other wavelengths. No oxygen! It looks like a rose.
This one presented a bit of a challenge for me to process. Initially, I tried to include older OIII data from EFOSC2, but I just couldn't make it work. I'm sure a processor much better than myself could do it though! I may try again as I learn more. I did fill the gaps of missing data with the older EFOSC2 exposures.
I apologise for my apparent laziness in writing captions (and maybe even the processing of the images).
red: vlt/fors2 h_alpha
green: vlt/fors2 v_high
blue: vlt/fors2 b_high
Gemini Observatory image of Kronberger 61 showing the ionized shell of expelled gas resembling a soccer ball. The light of the nebula is primarily due to ionized oxygen (oxygen-III) emission and its central star can be seen as the slightly bluer star very close to the center of the nebula. The field of view is 2.2 x 3.4 arcminutes with north up (rotated 22 degrees west of north). Image processing by Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage. A color composite image, it consists of two narrow-band images (O-III and Hydrogen-alpha with three, 500-second integrations each) obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i. Below the bright star at left is a barred spiral galaxy in the distant background, careful inspection will reveal several additional distant galaxies in the image.
A rework of the stack taken on June 13-14, 2012. I created more temperature matched darks with the cooled camera. Only set left from the old library is the 14C. If I ever get enough of those to try again, I may revisit this data. At this point, because of the flaws in the lights, I think I'm finished with this target for the season.
Restacked in DSS 3.3.3 beta 47 with best 85% filter applied. This gives 24 lights that are "better" even with the light leaks. Focus is not perfect on several of the lights so that's what I hoped to remove with the 85% setting.
As before, this is a stack of images of the M57 region as taken through an Orion 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain telescope with a full-spectrum modified Pentax K10D camera. The camera is further modified with a peltier device to cool hot spots on the body to help keep thermal noise to a minimum. Baader Moon and Skyglow filter used to control some LP. Lights are 10 minutes at 400 ISO. Guiding done via SSAG on Orion ST80 on Losmandy GM8 mount. Off center position because of slop in the DEC axis.
After stacked, I brought the FIT into PI where I ran deconvolution, then DBE, then 200x iterations of masked stretches, then a few rounds of curves, then ACDNR. Final step of solving and annotating before exporting to LR 3.
Image Plate Solver script version 1.51
==================================================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+0.000024753523 +0.000225118281 -0.276562916275
-0.000225158051 +0.000024794168 +0.373793262939
+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 0.815 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -96.275 deg
Focal ............. 1366.01 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 48' 13.0" x 28' 5.4"
Image center ...... RA: 18 53 23.321 Dec: +32 56 18.56
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 18 52 03.895 Dec: +33 18 42.66
top-right ...... RA: 18 52 29.604 Dec: +32 30 47.68
bottom-left .... RA: 18 54 17.557 Dec: +33 21 47.99
bottom-right ... RA: 18 54 42.078 Dec: +32 33 51.34
Another rough shot on the night I got my telescope back from repairs.
13x 30 second exposures, 6.5 minutes total exposure time. ... Obviously could have centered it better to avoid the field curvature.
M57 is a planetary nebula ... a shell of gass puffed off of a star similar to our star but near the end of it's life. A last hoorah before fading out as a white dwarf.
PK 2-9.1
Planetary nebula in Sagittarius
Source: Hubble Legacy Archive
hst_08345_56_wfpc2_f656n_pc
hst_08345_56_wfpc2_f658n_pc
Processed version of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of NGC 6818, a planetary nebula called the Little Gem Nebula.
Original caption: This colourful bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), roughly 6000 light-years away from us. The rich glow of the cloud is just over half a light-year across — humongous compared to its tiny central star — but still a little gem on a cosmic scale. When stars like the Sun enter retirement, they shed their outer layers into space to create glowing clouds of gas called planetary nebulae. This ejection of mass is uneven, and planetary nebulae can have very complex shapes. NGC 6818 shows knotty filament-like structures and distinct layers of material, with a bright and enclosed central bubble surrounded by a larger, more diffuse cloud. Scientists believe that the stellar wind from the central star propels the outflowing material, sculpting the elongated shape of NGC 6818. As this fast wind smashes through the slower-moving cloud it creates particularly bright blowouts at the bubble’s outer layers. Hubble previously imaged this nebula back in 1997 with its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, using a mix of filters that highlighted emission from ionised oxygen and hydrogen (opo9811h). This image, while from the same camera, uses different filters to reveal a different view of the nebula. A version of the image was submitted to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt.
This is a super clear image of tiny planetary nebula Henize 2-138. The central star looks a little strange.
Data used: hst_06353_15_wfpc2_total_pc
A beautiful, small planetary nebula captured by Hubble only through F656N. I'm really curious about what this nebula would look like in colour.
This image was enlarged to 150% original size. I don't really want to enlarge any images to more than that.
Data used: hst_06353_29_wfpc2_f656n_pc
Gemini image of the planetary nebula NGC 246, the Skull Nebula.
Image source: Gemini/AURA (and modified by me)
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the Butterfly Nebula.
Original caption: Hubble was recently retrained on NGC 6302, known as the "Butterfly Nebula," to observe it across a more complete spectrum of light, from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared, helping researchers better understand the mechanics at work in its technicolor "wings" of gas. The observations highlight a new pattern of near-infrared emission from singly ionized iron, which traces an S shape from lower left to upper right. This iron emission likely traces the central star system ís most recent ejections of gas, which are moving at much faster speeds than the previously expelled mass.
The star or stars at its center are responsible for the nebula's appearance. In their death throes, they have cast off layers of gas periodically over the past couple thousand years. The "wings" of NGC 6302 are regions of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit that are tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour.
NGC 6302 lies between 2,500 and 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.