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Huge waves are sculpted in this two-lobed nebula called the Red Spider Nebula (or NGC 6537), located some 3,000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbors one of the hottest stars known, and the star's powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometers (62.4 billion miles) high. The waves are caused by supersonic shocks, formed when the local gas is compressed and heated in front of the rapidly expanding lobes. The atoms caught in the shock emit the spectacular radiation seen in this image.
For more information, visit: spacetelescope.org/images/heic0109a/
Credit: ESA/Garrelt Mellema (Leiden University, the Netherlands)
M27 in Ha and OIII
Optics: Celestron C11 with Starizona SCT Corrector @ f/7
Camera: SBIG ST-10XME
Filters: Astrodon 3nm Ha, OIII
Mount: Astro-Physics 900GTO
Processing: CCDStack 2, Photoshop CS5
Exposure: 6x20 minutes ea. Ha and OIII
M57 (NGC 6720) is probably one of the most recognizable Messier objects. It is a planetary nebula found in the constellation Lyra, referred to as the Ring Nebula, and lies about 2,300 light-years from Earth. M57 is the glowing remains of a sun-like star. The star expelled a vast envelope of ionized gas before becoming a white dwarf.
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 18h 53m 35.079s
Declination: +33° 01′ 45.03″
Distance: 2300 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 8.8
Apparent dimensions (V): 230″ × 230″
Constellation: Lyra
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 111 x 60 seconds at -10C, processed using DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight. Image Date: April 13, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W95), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined.
Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-sized star like our Sun. While consuming the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star expels a large portion of its outer envelope. This material then becomes heated by the radiation from the stellar remnant and radiates, producing glowing clouds of gas that can show complex structures, as the ejection of mass from the star is uneven in both time and direction.
A spectacular example of this beautiful complexity is seen in the bluish lobes of NGC 5189. Most of the nebula is knotty and filamentary in its structure. As a result of the mass-loss process, the planetary nebula has been created with two nested structures, tilted with respect to each other, that expand away from the center in different directions.
This double bipolar or quadrupolar structure could be explained by the presence of a binary companion orbiting the central star and influencing the pattern of mass ejection during its nebula-producing death throes. The remnant of the central star, having lost much of its mass, now lives its final days as a white dwarf. However, there is no visual candidate for the possible companion.
The bright golden ring that twists and tilts through the image is made up of a large collection of radial filaments and cometary knots. These are usually formed by the combined action of photo-ionizing radiation and stellar winds.
This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on October 8, 2012, in filters tuned to the specific colors of fluorescing sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Broad filters in the visible and near-infrared were used to capture the star colors.
This is a combination of color (RGB) data from previous sessions (in March 2015 and November 2018), combined with Hα and OIII data from this year. This helped enhance the colors in the Owl Nebula, which is a planetary nebula that is in the upper left corner of this image. It also allowed finer details to be visible in both the nebula and the galaxy (M108).
Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with HyperStar
Cameras: Atik 314L+ one shot color (RGB)
Atik 414-EX with Atik Hα and OIII filters
Preprocessing in Nebulosity; alignment, stacking, channel combination and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop
North is at the right, and east at the top
Scale is 2.5" per pixel
M57- The famously named "Ring Nebula" , located in the northern constellation of Lyra is a Planetary Nebula caused by a dying star puffing off its outer shells about 6000 years ago; you can see the faint core of the dying star in the middle of the nebula. Distance 2300 light years from Earth.
Taken 6/19/2010 from Western Massachusetts.
Telescope Celestron EdgeHD 11" SCT
Camera: Modified Canon Rebel XSi
ISO1600
60 x 15 second exposures (15 minutes)
Processed in Deepsky Stacker and Photoshop
Cleopatra’s Eye, or NGC 1535, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Eridanus. This nebula has an unusual structure that is similar to the better-known NGC 2392, with an outer region and a brighter inner center.
A planetary nebula forms when a star approximately the size of our Sun dies, exhaling its outer layers into space as the core turns into a white dwarf star. Through early telescopes these objects resembled planets ― giving them their name ― but planetary nebulae are unrelated to actual planets.
Hubble observed this nebula as part of a study of over 100 planetary nebulae with nearby stars. The proximity of the stars indicated a possible gravitational connection between the nearby stars and the central stars of the nebulae. Observations of the distance between NGC 1535’s central star and its possible companion suggest that Cleopatra’s Eye is indeed part of a gravitationally bound binary star system.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Bond and R. Ciardullo (Pennsylvania State University), et. al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
The life of a planetary nebula is often chaotic, from the death of its parent star to the scattering of its contents far out into space. Captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESO 455-10 is one such planetary nebula, located in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).
The oblate shells of ESO 455-10, previously held tightly together as layers of its central star, not only give this planetary nebula its unique appearance, but also offer information about the nebula. Seen in a field of stars, the distinct asymmetrical arc of material over the north side of the nebula is a clear sign of interactions between ESO 455-10 and the interstellar medium.
The interstellar medium is the material such as diffuse gas between star systems and galaxies. The star at the center of ESO 455-10 allows Hubble to see the interaction with the gas and dust of the nebula, the surrounding interstellar medium, and the light from the star itself. Planetary nebulae are thought to be crucial in galactic enrichment as they distribute their elements, particularly the heavier metal elements produced inside a star, into the interstellar medium which will in time form the next generation of stars.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Stanghellini
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-spots-an-i...
This structure may look like a cosmic butterfly unfurling its celestial wings, but there’s nothing gentle or delicate about this massive blowout. In Caldwell 69, also cataloged as NGC 6302 and commonly known as the Butterfly or Bug Nebula, layers of gas are being ejected from a Sun-like star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel. Medium-mass stars grow unstable as they run out of fuel, which leads to the dramatic expulsion of material into space at speeds of over a million miles per hour. Streams of energetic ultraviolet radiation cause the cast-off material to glow, but eventually the nebula will fade and leave behind only a small stellar corpse called a white dwarf. Our middle-aged Sun can expect a similar fate once it runs out of fuel in about 5 billion years.
Nebulae like Caldwell 69 are known as planetary nebulae but are not related to planets. The term was coined by astronomer William Herschel, who discovered the Butterfly Nebula in 1826. Through his small telescope, planetary nebulae had the appearance of glowing, planet-like orbs. While stars that generate planetary nebulae may have once had planets in orbit about them, scientists expect that the fiery death throes these stars undergo will ultimately destroy or leave any attending planets completely uninhabitable.
The Butterfly Nebula is located about 4,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. Hubble obtained this close-up view in 2009 using its Wide Field Camera 3, installed by astronauts during the final shuttle servicing mission. These observations detected the nebula’s central star for the first time. Astronomers also compared the 2009 observations to those taken by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 2000 to determine the motions of the two lobes of ejected material, which appear to have been created rapidly in an event 2,250 years ago. Other parts of the nebula, specifically a dense, massive torus of material around the central star, were produced more slowly, starting about 5,000 years ago and then terminating about 2,900 years ago, preceding the lobe ejection. The delay between these events offers clues to how the stellar environment was modified as the central star evolved.
The Butterfly Nebula is highest and best viewed in the Southern Hemisphere during winter. From the Northern Hemisphere, its best season is the summer, but for most observers it will appear quite low above the southern horizon. With a magnitude of 9.5, the nebula is just visible with binoculars in dark skies, but a telescope will provide better views. In Hubble’s image above, filters that isolate emission from oxygen, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur from the planetary nebula were used to create a composite color image. Through your telescope, you can expect to see something more reminiscent of a small, smoky eraser smudge. Use a medium to large telescope under dark skies to make out the nebula’s butterfly shape.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 69, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2616-Image.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2004/news-2004-46.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
This image set showcases three views of the Butterfly Nebula, also called NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy.
Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and most elusive creatures in the cosmic zoo. These nebulae form when stars with masses between about 0.8 and 8 times the mass of the Sun shed most of their mass at the end of their lives. The planetary nebula phase is fleeting, lasting only about 20 000 years.
The Butterfly Nebula is a bipolar nebula, meaning that it has two lobes that spread in opposite directions, forming the ‘wings’ of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly’s ‘body’. This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that we see from the side, hiding the nebula’s central star – the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the nebula and causes it to glow. The dusty doughnut may be responsible for the nebula’s insectoid shape by preventing gas from flowing outward from the star equally in all directions.
The first and second of the three images shown here highlight the bipolar nature of the Butterfly Nebula in optical and near-infrared light captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The newer image on the right taken by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope zooms in on the centre of the Butterfly Nebula and its dusty torus, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure. The Webb data are supplemented with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a powerful network of radio dishes.
While the nebula’s central star is blanketed with thick, dusty gas at optical wavelengths, Webb’s infrared capabilities reveal the central star and show the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround it.
[Image description: Three views of the same nebula, presented side by side. The left and middle images, which are labeled ‘Hubble Optical’ and ‘Hubble Near IR’, show the nebula at roughly the same scale. These two images show some similar features, including a dark dust lane that runs through the centre of the nebula and two broad clouds that emerge from either side of the dust lane like the outstretched wings of a butterfly. A diamond-shaped region centred on the dust lane is outlined in each of these images. In the optical Hubble image, the nebula appears clumpy and nearly opaque, with few background stars showing through the cloudy material. The nebula appears in different shades of cream, yellow and orange, with the lightest colours appearing closest to the centre. The background of space is black with a handful of stars that are tinged pink. In the near-infrared Hubble image, the nebula appears cream coloured and most opaque near the centre, then becomes reddish with purple streaks and more translucent out toward the wings of the nebula. There are hundreds of background stars in the image, many of which are visible through the nebula. The third and final image zooms in on the diamond-shaped region near the centre of the other two images. This image is labeled ‘Webb & ALMA, Mid-IR & Sub-mm’. This image is completely different from the other two, showing a bright source at the centre that is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink. The upper-right and lower-left corners of this image show a purple streak pointing out of the image.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); CC BY 4.0
The "Eye of God" a wide field shot!
The Helix Nebula, aka " The Eye of God" also known as The Helix, or NGC 7293, is a large planetary nebula (PN) located in the constellation Aquarius.
Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, likely before 1824, this object is one of the closest to the Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae. This is a
dying star blowing off it's outer atmosphere! Based on recent measured expansion rates this Planetary Nebula is about 10,600 years old. The central star is destined to become a white dwarf.
The estimated distance is about 215 parsecs (700 light-years). It is similar in appearance to the Cat's Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula, whose size,
age, and physical characteristics are similar to the Dumbbell Nebula, varying only in its relative proximity and the appearance from the equatorial
viewing angle.
Modified Canon Rebel Xsi & 5.5 inch Newtonian Reflector, ISO 1600, for 90 minutes. 09-15-2015, its not too bad for a 5" diameter scope and sitting so low on the Horizon for us in Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
This image shows the planetary nebula IC 289, located in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia. Formerly a star like our Sun, it is now just a cloud of ionized gas being pushed out into space by the remnants of the star’s core, visible as a small bright dot in the middle of the cloud.
Observation data: J2000.0 epoch
Right ascension: 03h 10m 19.3017s
Declination: +61° 19′ 00.914″
Distance: 5,190 ± 500 ly
Constellation: Cassiopeia
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81 x 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: September 8, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
This planetary nebula is located right on the border of Taurus and Perseus. It is cataloged as NGC 1514 and is also known as the Crystal Ball Nebula. The magnitude, depending on the source, is listed at 10.9.
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 04h 09m 16.98573s
Declination: +30° 46′ 33.4699″
Distance: 1520 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 9.27
Apparent dimensions (V): 2.2′
Constellation: Taurus
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 68 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: January 2, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, formed after the death of a Sun-like star. The medium-sized star would have expelled its outer layers of gas into space as it died, leaving behind a white-dwarf core. A halo of glowing gas over 4.5 light-years across surrounds the nebula's brighter inner ring. Many round or nearly round planetary nebulae display these halo structures, and astronomers have been investigating how they evolve. NGC 2438 was one of the nebulae studied, and researchers found that the nebula’s halo glows due to the ionizing radiation of the central white dwarf.
In this color-filled image, blue represents oxygen (O III), green is hydrogen (H-alpha), orange is nitrogen (N II), and red is sulfur (S II).
This Hubble Space Telescope image was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which gave it its distinctive stair-shape. One of the camera’s four detectors provided a magnified view, which would be shrunk down in the final image to match the other three, creating the unique shape. For more information on the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image shape, visit: www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-faqs.
Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Knoll (NASA Goddard), and S. Öttl (Leopold Franzens Universität Innsbruck), et. al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Here is a shot I snapped of Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula (M57) on Sunday April 19, 2015 at Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, Rhode Island, USA. Residing at 2,600 light years distant, M57 is a planetary nebula with a diameter of about 2.6 light years. Found in the constellation Lyra, M57 is a small to mid-sized star transitioning into a white dwarf.
Photo Details:
Camera: Canon 60D MagicLantern
1370mm
f/9
Exposure: 120 seconds * 10 frames
This is a median composite of 10 shots to reduce noise.
-Scott MacNeill
This frames the bright Scutum Starcloud in the Milky Way, surrounded by contrasting dark nebulas and dust clouds. Just left of centre in the Starcloud is the bright star cluster Messier 11, or the Wild Duck Cluster. Another Messier open star cluster is in the field, Messier 26, at bottom. In the bottom left corner is a globular star cluster NGC 6712, dubbed the Weird Globular, with a small green dot beside it, the planetary nebula IC 1295.
Above centre is the star Beta Scuti with the smaller and somewhat indistinct starcloud NGC 6682 to the right on the upper right edge here.
The dark nebulas just above M11 are Barnard objects: B119, B111, B110 and others. But the large mass of dark dust at top doesn't seem to carry any official catalogue designation. Below M11 are small wisps of dark dust catalogued by Barnard as B115 thru B118, plus B112. At the right edge at centre is B103.
The starfields are yellowed by interstellar dust absorption of the short blue wavelengths.
The field of view is about 8.2° by 5.5°, similar to binoculars.
Technical:
This is a stack of 15 x 4-minute exposures with the Founder Optics Draco 62 astrograph with its f/3.9 Reducer, and the astro-modified Canon EOS R camera at ISO 800. No filter was employed here. On the Star Adventurer GTi mount autoguided with the MGEN3 autoguider. Taken at the Southern Alberta Star Party in the Cypress Hills in September 2024.
The Owl Nebula (also known as Messier 97, M97 or NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula located approximately 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The owl-like appearance is caused by various formed shells expanding away from the central star.
Observation data: J2000.0 epoch
Right ascension: 11h 14m 47.734s
Declination: +55° 01′ 08.50″
Distance: 2,030 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 9.9
Apparent dimensions (V): 3′.4 × 3′.3
Constellation: Ursa Major
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 239 x 60 second exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInisght. Image Date: December 19, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
These images of the planetary nebula Abell 30, (a.k.a. A30), show one of the clearest views ever obtained of a special phase of evolution for these objects. The inset image on the right is a close-up view of A30 showing X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in purple and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data showing optical emission from oxygen ions in orange. On the left is a larger view showing optical and X-ray data from the Kitt Peak National Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton, respectively. In this image the optical data show emission from oxygen (orange) and hydrogen (green and blue), and X-ray emission is colored purple.
A planetary nebula -- so called because it looks like a planet when viewed with a small telescope -- is formed in the late stage 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 central region, or core, the star undergoes a series of energy crises related to the depletion of hydrogen and subsequent contraction of the core. These crises culminate in the star expanding a hundred-fold to become a red giant.
Eventually the outer envelope of the red giant is ejected and moves away from the star at a relatively sedate speed of less than 100,000 miles per hour. The star meanwhile is transformed from a cool giant into a hot, compact star that produces intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation and a fast wind of particles moving at about 6 million miles per hour. The interaction of the UV radiation and the fast wind with the ejected red giant envelope creates the planetary nebula, shown by the large spherical shell in the bigger image.
In rare cases, nuclear fusion reactions in the region surrounding the star’s core heat the outer envelope of the star so much that it temporarily becomes a red giant again. The sequence of events -- envelope ejection followed by a fast stellar wind -- is repeated on a much faster scale than before, and a small-scale planetary nebula is created inside the original one. In a sense, the planetary nebula is reborn.
The large nebula seen in the larger image has an observed age of about 12,500 years and was formed by the initial interaction of the fast and slow winds. The cloverleaf pattern of knots seen in both images, correspond to the recently ejected material. These knots were produced much more recently, as they have an observed age of about 850 years, based on observations of their expansion using HST.
The diffuse X-ray emission seen in the larger image and in the region around the central source in the inset is caused by interactions between wind from the star and the knots of the ejected material. The knots are heated and eroded by this interaction, producing X-ray emission. The cause of the point-like X-ray emission from the central star is unknown.
Studies of A30 and other planetary nebulas help improve our understanding of the evolution of sun-like stars as they near the end of their lifetime. The X-ray emission reveals how the material lost by the stars at different evolutionary stages interact with each another. These observations of A30, located about 5500 light years away, provide a picture of the harsh environment that the solar system will evolve towards in several billion years, when the sun's strong stellar wind and energetic radiation will blast those planets that survived the previous, red giant phase of stellar evolution.
The structures seen in A30 originally inspired the idea of reborn planetary nebulas, and only three other examples of this phenomenon are known. A new study of A30, using the observatories mentioned above, has been reported by an international team of astronomers in the August 20th, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
The first author of the paper reporting these results is Martín A. Guerrero of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) in Spain. The other authors are N. Ruiz, also from the IAA-CSIC, Spain; W.-R. Hamann, from the University of Potsdam, Germany; Y.-H. Chu, from the University of Illinois, Urbana, IL; H. Todt, from the University of Potsdam, Germany; D. Schönberner, from the Leibniz-Institut Für Astrophysik in Potsdam, Germany; L. Oskinova, from the University of Potsdam, Germany; R. Gruendl, from the University of Illinois, Urbana, IL; M. Steffen, from the Leibniz-Institut Für Astrophysik in Potsdam, Germany; W. Blair, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and J. Toalá from the IAA-CSIC, Spain.
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: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/a30/
Image credit: Inset X-ray (NASA/CXC/IAA-CSIC/M.Guerrero et al); Inset Optical (NASA/STScI); Widefield X-ray (ESA/XMM-Newton); Widefield Optical (NSF/NOAO/KPNO)
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...
NGC 6742 (also known as Abell 50) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Draco. Its apparent size is 0.553′. Although the nebula’s magnitude — 13.4 — implies that it’s quite faint, the surface brightness is high enough for you to easily view it through a medium sized telescope. In the closeup view you can start to see some structure.
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 18h 59m 20s
Declination: +48° 27′ 55″
Constellation: Draco
Absolute magnitude (V): 13.4
Designations: Abell 50
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 54 x 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: July 8, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
The region of space at the intersection of Cygnus and Vulpecula. Lots of interstellar dust and deep sky objects can be seen, including the Gamma Cygni Nebula (top left), the Veil Nebula (Bottom left) and the Dumbbell nebula (far right). 26x30" exposures imaged under an 80% illuminated waning gibbous Moon. Image processed (to the best of my ability) for natural color: The Sadr region is pink due to Hydrogen Alpha and Hydrogen Beta emissions, interstellar dust is orange-brown from scattering and planetary nebulae like the Dumbbell are blue-green from emission of Doubly Ionized Oxygen. The Veil Nebula would show as purple and blue from a mix of H-alpha, H-beta & OIII emissions but unfortunately not enough color signal was gathered for it.
Gear Used:
Canon 350D unmodded
Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM
NyxTech NyxTracker V2
Aquisition:
26x30" lights
13 minutes total integration
f/3.2
ISO-1600
Bortle Class 4 skies + 80% Moon
Software Used:
Adobe Camera Raw
Adobe Photoshop CS5.1
PixInsight 1.8
Deep Sky Stacker
Notes:
-Image is displayed at 75% full resolution.
Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Germany, Canon EOS 600Dα, Ikharos ED refractor D = 80 mm f/5.6, 118 exposures of 30 s each at 1600 ISO, tracking only. Bayer averaged and binned twofold again; curve stretch. Named Helical nebula. Also known as Caldwell 63.
This is the 8th magnitude globular cluster NGC 6712 (at right) next to the 12th magnitude green planetary nebula IC 1295, both in Scutum the Shield and in a rich starfield. The globular appears yellowed by interstellar dust? They form a visual duo that is obvious even through the eyepiece of a telescope of modest aperture.
Technical:
This is a stack of 16 x 6 minute exposures with the Askar APO120 refractor at f/7 and with the Canon Ra at ISO 800. Taken from the Quailway Cottage in southeast Arizona on October 8, 2024 with the waxing Moon up and below the field.
The Ring Nebula (also cataloged as Messier 57, M57 and NGC 6720) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Lyra. The tiny white dot in the center of the nebula is the star’s hot core, called a white dwarf. M57 is about 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, and is best observed during August. Discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, the Ring Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8.8. It is easy to find, as it lies about halfway between the two 3rd -magnitude stars “Sheliak” and “Sulafat” which form the bottom of Lyra’s lyre; however, it requires a moderately-sized telescope to see its beautiful ring-like details. (REF: science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night...)
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 18h 53m 35.079s
Declination: +33° 01′ 45.03″
Distance: 2567±115 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 8.8
Apparent dimensions (V): 230″ × 230″
Constellation: Lyra
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 168 x 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight software. Image Date: May 2, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Here is a another reprocess my first ever LRGB CCD image taken with My Atik One 6.0 with Atik GP off axis guider using an Equinox 80 with a Televue 0.8x FR/FF. This time I've rebalanced the colours as it was a little green last time. The image consists of
4 No 300s luminance Subs
4 No 120s of Red Green & Blue subs.
I have updated this to remove Gomez's Hamburger, which is not a planetary nebula but rather a protoplanetary disk. The picturesque Hen 2-437 has taken its place. See previous version of the collage, now renamed "99 Planetary Nebulas" (I could put "And a Protoplanetary Disk" as a subtitle, hehe!) here.
Also, Flickr seems to be allowing me to upload the 10000 pixel wide version now. The previous one was uploaded at half that size. It was bugging out or something last time I tried.
Here is a copy of the original description for your convenience, since it still applies:
Inspired by insect illustration posters, this is a large collage of planetary nebulas I put together bit by bit as I processed them. All are presented north up and at apparent size relative to one another--I did not rotate or resize them in order to satisfy compositional aesthetics (if you spot any errors, let me know). Colors are aesthetic choices, especially since most planetary nebulas are imaged with narrowband filters.
How many of them can you identify?
Caldwell 74 looks like a mystic, glowing lake floating in the cosmos, but its true identity is even stranger. Also known as the Southern Ring or Eight-Burst Nebula, this formation is debris from a dying Sun-like star. When medium-mass stars run out of the nuclear fuel that powers them, they eject their outer layers of gas into space. The gaseous shell then expands outward from the remaining core of the star, known as a white dwarf. Objects like this are called planetary nebulae, but only because early astronomers thought they resembled planetary orbs when seen through a small telescope — not because of any real relation to planets.
This nebula was produced by a star that is part of a binary, or double star, system. A bright star lies near the center of this Hubble image, but it’s actually the tiny star just above it that produced the nebula. A flood of ultraviolet radiation from the small white dwarf’s surface makes the surrounding gases fluoresce. The brighter star is in an earlier stage of stellar evolution, but in the future it will probably share a similar fate.
This image was taken using Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. In this view, the colors illustrate the temperature of the gases, with blue representing the hottest gas and red representing the cooler gas at the outer edge. The Hubble image also reveals a host of dusty filaments that have condensed out of the expanding gases. Eons from now, these dusty particles may be recycled into new stars and planets.
A similar structure, known as the Ring Nebula or Messier 57, can be found in the northern constellation Lyra. The Southern Ring is its Southern Hemisphere counterpart, located in the constellation Vela. It was discovered by English astronomer John Herschel in 1835 and is also cataloged as NGC 3132. The magnitude-9.4 nebula is 2,000 light-years away and only about 0.4 light-years wide, so it can be somewhat challenging to observe with a small telescope. It is best viewed in autumn skies in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, only southern stargazers will have a chance at spotting Caldwell 74, low in springtime skies.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 74, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1998/news-1998-39.h...
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA/ESA)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
The brightest of the "planetary nebulae", some 1,360 light years away. It's always looked more like an apple-core than a dumbbell to me.
Total exposure time: 42 mins
Telescope: Tele Vue-60 APO refractor
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
NGC 2022 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Orion, located at a distance of 8210 light-years from the Sun.
NGC 2022 is a vast orb of gas in space, cast off by an aging star. The star is visible in the orb's center, shining through the gases it formerly held onto for most of its stellar life. When stars like the Sun grow advanced in age, they expand and glow red. These so-called red giants then begin to lose their outer layers of material into space. More than half of such a star's mass can be shed in this manner, forming a shell of surrounding gas. At the same time, the star's core shrinks and grows hotter, emitting ultraviolet light that causes the expelled gases to glow. This type of object is called, somewhat confusingly, a planetary nebula, though it has nothing to do with planets. The name derives from the rounded, planet-like appearance of these objects in early telescopes. (REF: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubbles-portrait-of-star...)
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 05h 42m 06.19056s
Declination: +09° 05′ 10.5843″
Distance: 8.21 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 11.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 28″
Constellation: Orion
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 81 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: January 31, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
This nebula began forming about 10,000 years ago when a dying star began flinging material into space. When Sun-like stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, they become unstable and expand as they blast their outer layers of gas away into space (bad news for any planets in the area). Hubble’s image of Caldwell 39 shows a snapshot of the unworldly process, captured with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 just a couple weeks after the successful Hubble servicing mission of December 1999.
Streams of high-energy ultraviolet radiation cause the expelled material to glow, creating a beautiful planetary nebula — a term chosen for the similarity in appearance to the round disk of a planet when viewed through a small telescope, not because of any actual relation to planets. The nebula’s glowing gases produce the colors in this image: nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue), and helium (violet).
Caldwell 39's outer disk of material is embellished by a ring of comet-shaped objects with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. In the central region of the nebula is a bubble of material that is being blown outward by the star’s intense “wind” of high-speed material. Hubble’s observations provided clues about how the strange structures in the nebula formed and evolve, though scientists are still puzzled about the origin of the comet-shaped features. It seems they may form from a collision of slow- and fast-moving gases. Hubble also helped scientists determine the nebula’s distance and the mass of the star that lurks in its center.
Discovered in 1787 by famed astronomer William Herschel, Caldwell 39 (also known as NGC 2392) is about 5,000 light-years away in the Gemini constellation. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is best viewed in the late winter through a large telescope. (In the Southern Hemisphere, look for it in the late summer.) With a magnitude of 9.2, the nebula can be found with a smaller telescope — but you’re unlikely to see much of the detail in the center. The nebula exhibits a blinking effect similar to that of Caldwell 15 (the “Blinking Planetary”). When looking directly at the central star, the surrounding nebulosity fades; but as one looks away from the center, the nebula pops back into view.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 39, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2000/07/940-Image.html
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/eskimo-nebula
Credit: NASA, Andrew Fruchter, and the ERO Team [Sylvia Baggett (STScI), Richard Hook (ST-ECF), Zoltan Levay (STScI)]
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
My own quick processing of this planetary nebula from JWST data.
False color, beautiful detail is clearly visible as the left hand central star emits material.
NASA/JWST/ESA
MIRI
770, 1130, 1280, 1800 filters 7.7 to 18 um
Mag 10
“NGC 3132 (also known as the Eight-Burst Nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, or Caldwell 74) is a bright and extensively studied planetary nebula in the constellation Vela. Its distance from Earth is estimated at about 613 pc. or 2,000 light-years.
The Southern Ring Nebula was selected as one of the five cosmic objects observed by the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the release of its first official science images on July 12, 2022.”
Wikipedia
After an average star like the Sun finishes burning through the supply of hydrogen and helium fuel in its core, it swells up into a cool, red giant star. In a last gasp before death, it throws off the layers of gas in its outer atmosphere in a brief but beautiful cosmic display called a planetary nebula. This exposes the core of the dying star — a dense, hot ball of carbon and oxygen called a white dwarf, which is doomed to fade out completely over time. The white dwarf is so hot that it shines very brightly in ultraviolet light, which then causes the gaseous material expelled by the dying star to glow.
Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 captured this image of Caldwell 59, a planetary nebula also cataloged as NGC 3242. The ghostly image is part of a collection of Hubble observations made of planetary nebulae in the mid-1990s, which revealed never-before-seen details in these stellar shrouds and helped astronomers better understand the late evolutionary stages of average, mid-size stars.
Caldwell 59 is sometimes called the Ghost of Jupiter for its faint resemblance to our solar system’s ruling gas giant planet, though it is much larger and farther away. If we could travel at the speed of light, we could reach Jupiter in about 40 minutes, but traveling at the same speed to this nebula would take over 1,400 years.
Although the star that produced it lived for billions of years, Caldwell 59 only has a lifetime of about 10,000 years. As the white dwarf quickly cools and the ultraviolet light dwindles, the surrounding gas will cool and fade. The gas expelled from the dying star carries traces of newly minted carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere of the dying star. This material will drift outward through space until it is recycled and drawn in to the formation of a new star.
Caldwell 59 was discovered by astronomer William Herschel in 1785. It is found in the Hydra constellation, and from the Northern Hemisphere it is best viewed during spring, although it remains low in the southern sky. It rises much higher in the sky during autumn from the Southern Hemisphere. This magnitude-7.8 cosmic sculpture appears similar in size to the planet Jupiter when seen in the night sky (another reason for its nickname), though through a large telescope it will look startlingly like an eye.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 59, see:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9738c3/
www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/fitsimages...
Credit: NASA, ESA, Bruce Balick and Jason Alexander (University of Washington), Arsen Hajian (U.S. Naval Observatory), Yervant Terzian (Cornell University), Mario Perinotto (University of Florence), Patrizio Patriarchi (Arcetri Observatory), and Reginald Dufour (Rice University); Processing by 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:
The Odd Couple: Abell 70 and LEDA 187663
Credit: Pan-STARRS DR2, Giuseppe Donatiello
J2000.0 20 31 33.127 -07 05 01.50
This is a singular case of alignment between a faint planetary nebula and a distant galaxy, Abell 70 and LEDA 187663, respectively.
Abell 70 (also PK 038-25.1) a planetary nebula at about 15,500 light-years in the constellation of Aquila. LEDA 187663 (also PMN J2033-0656) is a far edge-on galaxy Mag (J): 12.336.
Enjoy this cosmic pearl in the image obtained with PanSTARRs DR2 g, r, i, filters data. 5x5 arcmin FOV.
Messier 27, aka the Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nebula in Vulpecula. It is located nearly 127 light years away and can be seen in binoculars or a small telescope.
Acquisition Details:
Near-natural color RGB image composed using data captured by the Liverpool Telescope in Summer of 2017.
R: - SDSS-r filter
1x120"
4x90"
2x30"
9 minutes integration
G: Bessel V filter
4x90"
2x30"
7 minutes integration
B: Bessel B filter
1x120"
4x90"
8 minutes integration
Gear Used:
Camera - IO:O
Telescope - Liverpool Telescope: 2.0m Ritchey-Chrétien at f/10
Processing Credit: Hypatia Alexandria
Based on observations made with the Liverpool Telescope operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Editor's note: this is an inset 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/
Inset image: Nebula NGC 7009
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
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...
The Ring Nebula (Messier 57) in the middle of the stars Beta (right) and Gamma (left) Lyrae
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
The Ring Nebula has a very nice set of data. It's very fun without a lot of odd things to deal with. I included the faint outer structures which resemble petals of a carnation but they are a bit underexposed and blurry. You can see them better here in an image which combines Hubble data with imagery taken from the ground.
Red: hst_07632_01_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_07632_01_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
Blue: hst_07632_01_wfpc2_f469n_wf_sci
North is NOT up
Appelée aussi Nébuleuse Dumbell, cell-ci est situé dans la constellation du Petit Renard.
Lunette Orion 110mm ed f/7 + Filtre Idas Lps.
Canon Xs (1000D) à 800 iso
Monture HEQ-5 Pro + Celestron NextGuide
Expo: 23 x 7min. Total: 2hrs 40min.
St-Agapit (Québec), 31 juillet+ 4 Août 2011
Simeis 188 + Minkowski 1-41 planetary nebula, NGC 6559, LBN 29
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
RA/DEC 18 09 57.6 -24 06 35
Simeis 188 is an interstellar cloud of emission, reflection and dark nebulae. It hosts a star forming region. The 10 mag star HD 166056 which is involved in the brightest part of the nebula is located 1476 parsec away. The 7.3 mag star 11 Sgr is with 1195 parsec closer to us.
The brightest part of this nebula was first sighted by John Herschel on 1 July 1826 using his reflecting telescope with 18.3 inch aperture and 20 feet focal length. In his «Slough Catalogue» of 1833 he listed it as h 1996 and noted: «Several stars affected with nebulosity: The brightest taken.»
On 27 June 1837 observing from South Africa he listed the same nebula as h 3733 and noted: «Very faint, large, oblong, 5' long, 3' broad, place of a double star involved; 6 other stars nearby. Query if involved.»
In his «General catalogue» of 1864 he listed the nebula as GC 4384 and wrote: «very faint, very large, little extended, double star involved.»
In 1888 John L. E. Dreyer then added the nebula as NGC 6559 to his well known «New General Catalogue».
In 1952 the Russian astronomers Grigory Abramovich Shajn and Vera Fedorovna Gaze worked at the Simeiz Observatory in Crimea. They were probably the first ones to realize that the NGC and IC objects are all connected in a large complex: «Four distinct nebulae stand out against the background of S188: IC1274, IC1275, IC4685 and NGC6559.» Later this nebula complex referred to as Simeis (or Simeiz) 188, not to be confused with Sharpless catalogue.
Stewart Sharpless searched in the 1950-ies the photo plates of the «Palomar Observatory Sky Survey» made with the 48 inch Schmidt telescope and identified these objects as one big nebula complex that appeared to be connected to nearby Messier 8. The nebula was cataloged in 1959 as Sh 2-29 (40' diameter), Sh 2-31 (8' diameter) and Sh 2-32 (8' diameter).
The Canadian astronomer Sidney van den Bergh searched the photo plates of the «Palomar Observatory Sky Survey» (POSS) in 1966 and identified the reflection nebulae vdB 115 around star HD 165872.
Planetary Nebula Minkowski 1-41
(PN G006.7-02.2: M 1-41, PK 6-02.1, He 2- 355, Ve 62, VV 152, VV' 355, Wray 17- 112)
RA/DEC 18h 09m 30s -24° 12' 28"
In 1946 the German-American astronomer Rudolph Minkowski found the planetary nebula M 1-41 while he was looking for H-α emissions on the photographic plates taken with the 60 inch or 100 inch telescope on Mount Wilson.
This unusual shaped planetary nebula has a relatively bright irregular central region and faint, very extended bipolar lobes in orientation of PA 9°. The lobes are only visible in infrared at 8 µm. The central star has atemperature of 142'400 K. The planetary nebula is superimposed on the background nebula and lies at a distance of 848 parsec.
This planetary nebula is a medium-sized star (like our sun) that is nearing the end of its lifespan. It is ejecting various gasses into space, which accounts for the spectrum of colors. Soon, it will collapse into a relatively small, cool, white dwarf. This is a stack of 13 images totaling 22 minutes of exposure time, taken with an infrared-modified Canon Xsi at ISO 1600 through a Celestron 9.25" telescope at 2350mm and f/10. The sky was perfectly clear at 12,000 feet above sea level on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park last night. It was a joy to be out telescoping!
When I was in Cyprus, I had a go at deep space astrophotography. I borrowed a tamron 200-500mm lens from a friend to try this. It was a cold, clear night with good visibility so I spent over an hour capturing this image of Orion Nebula (also known as M42). I am quite pleased with the end result - the amount of detail captured was much better than I expected. The colours are as captured by the camera. I still have a lot to learn in this area, but I can't wait to try it again.
I am running an astrophotography workshop in Cyprus this summer. It'll be for capturing wide angle night skies, and nightscapes but we may even get a chance to try stuff like this if the group is up for it. You can find more information and book a place on my website: esentunar.com/workshops
M27 (NGC6853)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 19h 59m 36.340s Dec: +22° 43′ 16.09″
The Dumbbell Nebula (M 27, NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in 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. Its visual magnitude is 7.5 and its diameter about 8 arcminutes.
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat +51.542 Long -3.593
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian with Nikon D780 at prime focus. Tracked using an EQ6 Syntrek mount.
25 x 25s @ ISO 2500
10 x 25s @ ISO 3200
18 darks
18 flats
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker, GIMP, Adobe Lightroom & image cropped.
NGC 7027, also known as the Jewel Bug Nebula or the Magic Carpet Nebula, is a very young and dense planetary nebula located around 3,000 light-years (920 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. Discovered in 1878 by Édouard Stephan using the 800 mm (31 in) reflector at Marseille Observatory, it is one of the smallest planetary nebulae and by far the most extensively studied.
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension: 21h 07m 1.7s
Declination: +42° 14′ 11″
Distance: 3,000 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 10
Apparent dimensions (V): 16" × 12"
Constellation: Cygnus
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81 x 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: August 25, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
ESA Space Science Image of the Week: Dying star offers glimpse of our Sun’s future
This is a final act of celestial beauty before the long fade into cosmic history. Invisibly buried in the centre of this colourful swirl of gas is a dying star, roughly the same mass as the Sun.
This example is known as Kohoutek 4-55. Named after its discoverer, the Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutec, it is located 4600 light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus.
As a star ages, the nuclear reactions that keep it shining begin to falter. This uncertain energy generation causes the stars to pulsate in an irregular way, casting off its outer layers into space.
As the star sheds these outer gases, the super-hot core is revealed. It gives off huge quantities of ultraviolet light, and this radiation causes the gas shells to glow, creating the fragile beauty of the nebula.
Credits: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Read more here.
NGC-7293 The Helix Planetary Nebula in Aquarius.The "Eye of God" a wide field shot!.The Helix Nebula, aka " The Eye of God" also known as The Helix, or NGC 7293, is a large planetary nebula (PN) located in the constellation Aquarius..Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, likely before 1824, this object is one of the closest to the Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae. This is a.dying star blowing off it's outer atmosphere! Based on recent measured expansion rates this Planetary Nebula is about 10,600 years old. The central star is destined to become a white dwarf..The estimated distance is about 215 parsecs (700 light-years). It is similar in appearance to the Cat's Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula, whose size,.age, and physical characteristics are similar to the Dumbbell Nebula, varying only in its relative proximity and the appearance from the equatorial.viewing angle..Modified Canon Rebel Xsi & 5.5 inch Newtonian Reflector, ISO 1600, for 180 minutes(3 hours). 45 x 4 minute subs, Calibrated & Stacked in Nebulosity, Processed in Maxim DL, & PS Camera Raw 2015, its not too bad for a 5" scope and sitting so low on the Horizon for us in Ohio.
Comet-like tendrils cluster along the inner rim of the nebula’s reddish outer gas ring. This composite picture is a seamless blend of Hubble’s ultra-sharp images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp Hubble Space Telescope images 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, Arizona.
Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute assembled these images into a mosaic. The mosaic was then blended with a wider photograph taken by the Mosaic Camera. The image shows a fine web of filamentary "bicycle-spoke" features embedded in the colorful red and blue gas ring, which is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth.
Because the nebula is nearby, it appears as nearly one-half the diameter of the full Moon. This required Hubble astronomers to take several exposures with the Advanced Camera for Surveys to capture most of the Helix. Hubble views were then blended with a wider photo taken by the Mosaic Camera. The portrait offers a dizzying look down what is actually a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases. The fluorescing tube is pointed nearly directly at Earth, so it looks more like a bubble than a cylinder. A forest of thousands of comet-like filaments, embedded along the inner rim of the nebula, points back toward the central star, which is a small, super-hot white dwarf.
The tentacles formed when a hot "stellar wind" of gas plowed into colder shells of dust and gas ejected previously by the doomed star. Ground-based telescopes have seen these comet-like filaments for decades, but never before in such detail. The filaments may actually lie in a disk encircling the hot star, like a collar. The radiant tie-die colors correspond to glowing oxygen (blue) and hydrogen and nitrogen (red).
Valuable Hubble observing time became available during the November 2002 Leonid meteor storm. To protect the spacecraft, including Hubble's precise mirror, controllers turned the aft end into the direction of the meteor stream for about half a day. Fortunately, the Helix Nebula was almost exactly in the opposite direction of the meteor stream, so Hubble used nine orbits to photograph the nebula while it waited out the storm. To capture the sprawling nebula, Hubble had to take nine separate snapshots.
Planetary nebulae like the Helix are sculpted late in a Sun-like star's life by a torrential gush of gases escaping from the dying star. They have nothing to do with planet formation, but got their name because they look like planetary disks when viewed through a small telescope. With higher magnification, the classic "doughnut-hole" in the middle of a planetary nebula can be resolved. Based on the nebula's distance of 650 light-years, its angular size corresponds to a huge ring with a diameter of nearly 3 light-years. That's approximately three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the nearest star.
The Helix Nebula is a popular target of amateur astronomers and can be seen with binoculars as a ghostly, greenish cloud in the constellation Aquarius. Larger amateur telescopes can resolve the ring-shaped nebula, but only the largest ground-based telescopes can resolve the radial streaks. After careful analysis, astronomers concluded the nebula really isn't a bubble, but is a cylinder that happens to be pointed toward Earth.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/1317/news_release/2003-11
Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO)
Source: hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/image/f/
Retouching: Lightroom
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This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene.
What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour—fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 24 minutes!
A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun is at the center of this fury. It has ejected its envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the cast-off material glow. This object is an example of a planetary nebula, so-named because many of them have a round appearance resembling that of a planet when viewed through a small telescope.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a new camera aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, snapped this image of the planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302, but more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula. WFC3 was installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009, during the servicing mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope.
NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star's outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The "butterfly" stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
The central star itself cannot be seen, because it is hidden within a doughnut-shaped ring of dust, which appears as a dark band pinching the nebula in the center. The thick dust belt constricts the star's outflow, creating the classic "bipolar" or hourglass shape displayed by some planetary nebulae.
The star's surface temperature is estimated to be about 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it one of the hottest known stars in our galaxy. Spectroscopic observations made with ground-based telescopes show that the gas is roughly 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is unusually hot compared to a typical planetary nebula.
The WFC3 image reveals a complex history of ejections from the star. The star first evolved into a huge red-giant star, with a diameter of about 1,000 times that of our Sun. It then lost its extended outer layers. Some of this gas was cast off from its equator at a relatively slow speed, perhaps as low as 20,000 miles an hour, creating the doughnut-shaped ring. Other gas was ejected perpendicular to the ring at higher speeds, producing the elongated "wings" of the butterfly-shaped structure. Later, as the central star heated up, a much faster stellar wind, a stream of charged particles traveling at more than 2 million miles an hour, plowed through the existing wing-shaped structure, further modifying its shape.
The image also shows numerous finger-like projections pointing back to the star, which may mark denser blobs in the outflow that have resisted the pressure from the stellar wind.
The nebula's reddish outer edges are largely due to light emitted by nitrogen, which marks the coolest gas visible in the picture. WFC3 is equipped with a wide variety of filters that isolate light emitted by various chemical elements, allowing astronomers to infer properties of the nebular gas, such as its temperature, density, and composition.
The white-colored regions are areas where light is emitted by sulfur. These are regions where fast-moving gas overtakes and collides with slow-moving gas that left the star at an earlier time, producing shock waves in the gas (the bright white edges on the sides facing the central star). The white blob with the crisp edge at upper right is an example of one of those shock waves.
NGC 6302 was imaged on July 27, 2009, with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in ultraviolet and visible light. Filters that isolate emissions from oxygen, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulfur from the planetary nebula were used to create this composite image.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope celebrates the holiday season with a striking image of the planetary nebula NGC 5189. The intricate structure of the stellar eruption looks like a giant and brightly coloured ribbon in space.
More information and download-options:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1220a/
Credit:
NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)