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Popularly known as the Eye of God, this is the Helix Nebula, NGC7293 is a planetary nebula roughly 700 light years away and about 2 light years across.
This image combines RGB and Narrowband images at wildly different scales using a combination of RGB from an RC16 with Apogee U9000 with Ha+OIII from FSQ106ED at f3.7 with SBIG ST10xe.
M108 (Surfboard Galaxy) is a barred spiral galaxy seen edge on about 46 Mly away. M97 (Owl Nebula) is a planetary nebula approximately 2,000 ly away. Both are found in the constellation Ursa Major.
Rio Rancho NM Bortle 5/6 zone
March 24-25, 2022
William Optics Redcat 51
ZWO 183mc pro
ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini
Optolong L-Pro filter
ZWO ASI Air Pro
Sky-Watcher HEQ5
156 X 300s lights ; with darks bias dithering
Gain 111 at -10C
Processed in DSS and PS
Download full size image 5K here: www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/54697104186/sizes/o/
See license below.
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/j.Roger/AndreaLuck CC BY
NASA/ESA JWST Webb Space Telescope
Title: Infrared imaging of bipolar features in planetary nebula
Target name: NGC 6072 (Star, Planetary nebulae nuclei)
Date: 2024-07-29
Instrument: NIRCam
Filters: f070w, f187n, f212n, f356w, f405n-f444w, f444w-f470n
Colours Assigned: Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Orange, Red
PI: Macarena Garcia Marin
PI Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA - JWST
Proposal ID: 6554 www.stsci.edu/jwst-program-info/program/?program=6554
Product IDs:
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_f444w-f470n
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_f405n-f444w
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f356w
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f212n
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f187n
jw06554-o001_t025_nircam_clear-f070w
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/j.Roger/AndreaLuck CC BY
Feel free to share, giving the appropriate credit and providing a link to the original image: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
Wide field view of M57, the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra. I used a 300mm lens piggy-backed on my Meade alt-azi mount, 8 x 20 seconds at ISO1600 and stacked in ImagesPlus software.
Like many other so-called planetary nebulae, IC 4406 (also known as the Retina Nebula) exhibits a high degree of symmetry; the left and right halves are nearly mirror images of the other. If we could fly around IC 4406 in a starship, we would see that the gas and dust form a vast doughnut of material streaming outward from the dying star. From Earth, we are viewing the doughnut from the side. This side view allows us to see the intricate tendrils of dust that have been compared to the eye's retina. In other planetary nebulae, like the Ring Nebula (NGC 6720), we view the doughnut from the top.
The doughnut of material confines the intense radiation coming from the remnant of the dying star. Gas on the inside of the doughnut is ionized by light from the central star and glows. Light from oxygen atoms is rendered blue in this image; hydrogen is shown as green, and nitrogen as red. The range of color in the final image shows the differences in concentration of these three gases in the nebula.
Unseen in the Hubble image is a larger zone of neutral gas that is not emitting visible light, but which can be seen by radio telescopes.
One of the most interesting features of IC 4406 is the irregular lattice of dark lanes that criss-cross the center of the nebula. These lanes are about 160 astronomical units wide (1 astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun). They are located right at the boundary between the hot glowing gas that produces the visual light imaged here and the neutral gas seen with radio telescopes. We see the lanes in silhouette because they have a density of dust and gas that is a thousand times higher than the rest of the nebula. The dust lanes are like a rather open mesh veil that has been wrapped around the bright doughnut.
The fate of these dense knots of material is unknown. Will they survive the nebula's expansion and become dark denizens of the space between the stars or simply dissipate?
This image is a composite of data taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in June 2001 and January 2002. Filters used to create this color image show oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen gas glowing in this object.
For more information please visit: hubblesite.org/image/1209/news_release/2002-14
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope 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 ionised 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. Weirdly enough, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. Early observers, when looking through small telescopes, could only see undefined, smoky forms that looked like gaseous planets — hence the name. The term has stuck even though modern telescopes like Hubble have made it clear that these objects are not planets at all, but the outer layers of dying stars being thrown off into space. Stars shine as a result of nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, converting hydrogen to helium. All stars are stable, balancing the inward push caused by their gravity with the outwards thrust from the inner fusion reactions in their cores. When all the hydrogen is consumed the equilibrium is broken; the gravitational forces become more powerful than the outward pressure from the fusion process and the core starts to collapse, heating up as it does so. When the hot, shrinking core gets hot enough, the helium nuclei begin to fuse into carbon and oxygen and the collapse stops. However, this helium-burning phase is highly unstable and huge pulsations build up, eventually becoming large enough to blow the whole star’s atmosphere away. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Serge Meunier.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Serge Meunier
While trying to write an article regarding the Hubble archive today, I revisited this object and decided to process it again. Previously I used NICMOS data for the infrared part, visible in orange as the slightly blurry-looking rings and arcs around the brighter central structure. The old version is here.
I think the new version offers up a somewhat clearer vision of the infrared portion. NICMOS was always a bit difficult to work with because there were a lot of "features"—as they have been charitably called—to work out of the image. This version uses observations made by the newer WFC3/IR, and I am a lot more confident that every little faint detail you see here is indeed the nebula and not some instrumental wonkiness.
I removed the diffraction spikes once again because they were very distracting and easy to confuse with the structure of the object.
Data from following two proposals was used to create the image:
Characterization of the WFC3 IR Grisms
Hubble Heritage Observations of PNe with WFPC2
Orange: WFC3/IR F140W
Green: WFPC2 F658N
Blue: WFPC2 F656N
North is up.
I was going through some imaging from earlier this year and found some images taken in February (Weatherly, Pennsylvania) of Messier 46 (M46). This final image is 8 x 60 seconds at ISO 1600 using a Canon T4i and 400mm lens. What I like with the M46 open cluster is that you get a bonus, the planetary nebula NGC 2438. While not part of the open cluster, it appears in the same view because it lines up behind the cluster. The planetary nebula was likely formed by the death of a red giant star in its center.
NGC1360 aks The Robin's Egg nebula is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Fornax. This image reveals the complex and intricate structure within the nebula, showcasing a stunning palette derived from Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) and Oxygen-III (OIII) filters. The nebula's vivid colors and detailed features are brought to life with RGB data for the stars, adding depth and richness to the image.
Technical Details:
Telescope: 🔭 ASA RC600 24inch F4.5
Mount: 🌌 ASA DDM200
Camera: 📷 Moravian C3 Pro
Filters: 🎨 FLI Ha, OIII, RGB
Exposure:
Ha: 300s x 3
OIII: 300s x 9
Red: 60s x 5
Green: 60s x 5
Blue: 60s x 5
Total Integration:
Ha: 15 minutes
OIII: 45 minutes
RGB: 15 minutes
Processing:
The image was processed using MaximDL, PixInsight, and Photoshop to enhance the nebula's vivid details and colors, bringing out the intricate structure and the rich palette of NGC 1360.
Location and Date:
Namibia, June 2022
Enjoy this celestial masterpiece, which highlights both the beauty and complexity of NGC 1360, a stunning example of a planetary nebula with a rich and varied structure.
Thanks for watching,
Haim
The final item in the Caldwell catalog, Caldwell 109 resembles a phantom snowball. The glowing shroud of gas was shed by its central star in a final act before dying. Like all stars, the one in the middle of this nebula spent its life participating in a precarious balance act, with the outward pressure generated by nuclear fusion countered by the inward pull of gravity. During most of the star’s lifetime the two held an uneasy truce, making the star a giant, controlled nuclear bomb.
When the star began to exhaust its hydrogen fuel, however, there wasn’t enough pressure to fight off gravity. The core began to contract, becoming denser and hotter, triggering the fusion of helium into carbon. The heat produced caused the star’s outer layers of gas to expand, transforming the star into a red giant. After spending about a billion years as a red giant, the star began a 10,000-year process to shed its outer layers of gas, ultimately uncovering the remaining core of the star — a white dwarf. High-energy radiation from the white dwarf makes the cast-off gaseous layers glow, creating a ghostly specter in the night sky. In tens of thousands of years, Caldwell 109 will fade into darkness as the white dwarf cools like an ember until it finally burns out completely.
Planetary nebulae like Caldwell 109 are especially interesting to scientists because they represent a future stage of our own Sun, which is destined to meet a similar fate in about 6 billion years. This Hubble image was taken in visible and infrared light using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 as part of a survey of planetary nebulae. The observations revealed many surprisingly intricate, glowing patterns spun into space by aging stars: pinwheels, lawn-sprinkler–style jets, elegant goblet shapes, and even some that look like a rocket engine’s exhaust.
Caldwell 109 was discovered by John Herschel in 1835 and subsequently cataloged as NGC 3195. It lies 5,500 light-years away toward the Chamaeleon constellation. It is visible year-round from the Southern Hemisphere but is highest in the autumn. With a magnitude of 11.6 it can be a challenging target to spot for small telescopes. Through a moderate-sized telescope, Caldwell 109 will look like a swollen star.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 109, see:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9738c12/
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1997/news-1997-38.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Howard Bond (STScI); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
Taken from New Mexico Skies Observatory using an SBIG STL-6303 camera and 51-cm RCOS telescope on a Software Bisque PME 1 Mount
Mapped Colour
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.
The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged striking details of the planetary nebula NGC 2818, which lies in the southern constellation of Pyxis (the Compass). The spectacular structure of the planetary nebula contains the outer layers of a star that were expelled into interstellar space.
The glowing gaseous shrouds in the nebula were shed by the central star after it ran out of fuel to sustain the nuclear reactions in its core. Our own Sun will undergo a similar process, but not for another 5 billion years or so. Planetary nebulae fade gradually over tens of thousands of years. The hot, remnant stellar core of NGC 2818 will eventually cool off for billions of years as a white dwarf.
NGC 2818 is often heralded as one of the galaxy's few planetary nebulae to be discovered as a member of an open star cluster. The other celebrated case is the planetary nebula NGC 2438 in the open star cluster designated Messier 46. Recent investigations, however, suggest that both cases merely amount to a chance alignment, as the objects are actually located at varying distances along the line-of-sight. To date, there has yet to be a single established case of a galactic planetary nebula discovered in an open cluster.
Planetary nebulae have been detected in several globular star clusters in our galaxy. These densely packed, gravitationally bound groups of hundreds of thousands to millions of stars are far older than their open cluster counterparts.
This Hubble image was taken in November 2008 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The colors in the image represent a range of emissions coming from the clouds of the nebula: red represents nitrogen, green represents hydrogen, and blue represents oxygen.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2464/news_release/2009-05
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
In its first glimpse following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a majestic view of planetary nebula NGC 2392, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star. This stellar relic was first spied by William Herschel in 1787. In this Hubble telescope image, the nebula displays a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. Although the bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense "wind" of high-speed material.
The planetary nebula began forming about 10,000 years ago, when the dying star began flinging material into space. The nebula is composed of two elliptically shaped lobes of matter streaming above and below the dying star. In this photo, one bubble lies in front of the other, obscuring part of the second lobe.
Scientists believe that a ring of dense material around the star's equator, ejected during its red giant phase, created the nebula's shape. This dense waist of material is plodding along at 72,000 miles per hour (115,000 kilometers per hour), preventing high-velocity stellar winds from pushing matter along the equator. Instead, the 900,000-mile-per-hour (1.5-million-kilometer-per-hour) winds are sweeping the material above and below the star, creating the elongated bubbles. The bubbles are not smooth like balloons but have filaments of denser matter. Each bubble is about 1 light-year long and about half a light-year wide. Scientists are still puzzled about the origin of the comet-shaped features in the disk. One possible explanation is that these objects formed from a collision of slow- and fast-moving gases.
NGC 2392 is about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Gemini. The picture was taken January 10 and 11, 2000, with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The nebula's glowing gases produce the colors in this image: nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue), and helium (violet).
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2000/07/940-Image.ht...
Credit: NASA, Andrew Fruchter and the ERO Team (Sylvia Baggett [STScI], Richard Hook [ST-ECF], Zoltan Levay [STScI])
Abell 72, a faint planetary nebula in the constellation Delphinus, is captured here alongside the distant galaxy PGC 65491, which was a challenge to bring out in the final image. The intricate nebula is complemented by the faint light of this spiral galaxy, both revealing delicate details that took careful processing to highlight. The Oxygen-III data enhances the nebula’s structure, while the LRGB filters bring out the vibrant colors of the stars and the nebula's subtle hues.
See also my crop version: www.flickr.com/photos/101543943@N04/54058051800/in/datepo...
Technical Details:
Telescope: 🔭 ASA 400 RC f/8
Mount: 🌌 ASA DDM100
Camera: 📷 ZWO ASI 6200 MM Pro (IMX455 CMOS sensor)
Filters: 🎨 OIII, LRGB
Exposure:
OIII: 900s x 6
LRGB: 300s x 6 for each channel
Lum: 600s x 3
Total Integration:
OIII: 90 minutes
RGB: 30 minutes per channel
Lum: 30 minutes
Processing: The image was processed using MaximDL, PixInsight, and Photoshop to carefully reveal the nebula's intricate structure and the faint galaxy PGC 65491 beside it, bringing out the stunning details of both celestial objects.
Location and Date: Namibia, September 2024
Enjoy this unique view of Abell 72, a planetary nebula with PGC 65491 nearby, offering a fascinating contrast between the nebula’s soft, ethereal glow and the distant galaxy’s faint, elusive presence.
Thanks for watching,
Haim
The Helix Nebula. This image is a combination of data taken last year and this year in two sessions. This object is a very challenging target because from this location it is very low in the sky and there isn't much time to image it before it disappears behind trees and buildings. To shoot it from North London means pointing a telescope straight into the glow of London light pollution and taking long exposures. The subs looked terrible on both sessions so I was amazed that anything at all came out after stacking. On the second session we also had a nearly full moon to contend with and that washed the images out even more. The final image required a lot of processing and still looks rather noisy.
[From Wikipedia] The Helix Nebula (also known as NGC 7293 or Caldwell 63) is a planetary nebula located approximately 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. This object is one of the closest to the Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae. The nebula spans about 2.5 light-years and its age is estimated to be 10,966 years. The Helix Nebula has sometimes been referred to as the "Eye of God" in pop culture, as well as the "Eye of Sauron".
The Helix Nebula is an example of a planetary nebula, formed by the death of an intermediate to low-mass star, which sheds its outer layers near the end of its evolution. Gases from the star in the surrounding space appear, from our vantage point, as if we are looking down a helix structure. The remnant central stellar core, known as the central star (CS) of the planetary nebula, is destined to become a white dwarf star. The observed glow of the central star is so energetic that it causes the previously expelled gases to brightly fluoresce.
09-10/09/2020
016 x 300-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
020 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
23-24/09/2021
013 x 300-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
006 x 180-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 2 hours and 43 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop
Equipment:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120 MC
Guiding Camera: SVBONY SV105 with ZWO USBST4 guider adapter
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro with anti-dew heater
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Light pollution filter
Optolong L-PRO Maximum Luminosity Filter
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Galaxy Images from NASA's newest James Webb Space Telescope revealed for the first time Cosmic Cliffs, the previously invisible areas of star birth in the Carina Nebula. The rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but James Webb Space Telescope's extreme imaging capability can now capture these fascinating events.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Galaxy Images from NASA's newest James Webb Space Telescope revealed for the first time Cosmic Cliffs, the previously invisible areas of star birth in the Carina Nebula. The rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but James Webb Space Telescope's extreme imaging capability can now capture these fascinating events.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photographed a nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. 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 July 6, 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.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/3124/news_release/2012-49
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Ladies rock outer space! Vote to make this a real LEGO set: ideas.lego.com/projects/147876
This vignette of astronomer Nancy Grace Roman is part of "Women of NASA," a project on the LEGO Ideas contest celebrating five pioneering women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Roman is known to many as the "Mother of Hubble" for her role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope, seen here. One of the first female executives at NASA, she also developed NASA's astronomy research program.
If this project receives 10,000 votes, you could soon buy one at a LEGO store near you!
The full Women of NASA set includes four additional minifigures — of Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, Katherine Johnson, and Margaret Hamilton — plus vignettes including a mini space shuttle, instruments of the Apollo era, and a recreation of a famous photo depicting the reams of code that sent humans to the moon.
To see the full set and to vote, visit: ideas.lego.com/projects/147876. Thanks for your support!
Astronomers may not have observed the fabled "Stairway to Heaven," but they have photographed something almost as intriguing: ladder-like structures surrounding a dying star.
This image, taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveals startling details of one of the most unusual nebulae known in our Milky Way. Cataloged as HD 44179, this nebula is more commonly called the "Red Rectangle" because of its unique shape and color as seen with ground-based telescopes.
Hubble has revealed a wealth of new features in the Red Rectangle that cannot be seen with ground-based telescopes looking through Earth's turbulent atmosphere.
Hubble's sharp pictures show that the Red Rectangle is not really rectangular, but has an overall X-shaped structure, which astronomers interpret as arising from outflows of gas and dust from the star in the center. The outflows are ejected from the star in two opposing directions, producing a shape like two ice-cream cones touching at their tips. Also remarkable are straight features that appear like rungs on a ladder, making the Red Rectangle look similar to a spider web, a shape unlike that of any other known nebula in the sky. These rungs may have arisen in episodes of mass ejection from the star occurring every few hundred years. They could represent a series of nested, expanding structures similar in shape to wine glasses, seen exactly edge-on so that their rims appear as straight lines from our vantage point.
The star in the center of the Red Rectangle is one that began its life as a star similar to our Sun. It is now nearing the end of its lifetime and is in the process of ejecting its outer layers to produce the visible nebula. The shedding of the outer layers began about 14,000 years ago. In a few thousand years, the star will have become smaller and hotter, and will begin to release a flood of ultraviolet light into the surrounding nebula; at that time, gas in the nebula will begin to fluoresce, producing what astronomers call a planetary nebula.
At the present time, however, the star is still so cool that atoms in the surrounding gas do not glow, and the surrounding dust particles can only be seen because they are reflecting the starlight from the central star. In addition, there are molecules mixed in with the dust, which emit light in the red portion of the spectrum. Astronomers are not yet certain which types of molecules are producing the red color that is so striking in the Red Rectangle, but suspect that they are hydrocarbons that form in the cool outflow from the central star.
Another remarkable feature of the Red Rectangle, visible only with the superb resolution of the Hubble telescope, is the dark band passing across the central star. This dark band is the shadow of a dense disk of dust that surrounds the star. In fact, the star itself cannot be seen directly, due to the thickness of the dust disk. All we can see is light that streams out perpendicularly to the disk, and then scatters off of dust particles toward our direction. Astronomers found that the star in the center is actually a close pair of stars that orbit each other with a period of about 10 1/2 months. Interactions between these stars have probably caused the ejection of the thick dust disk that obscures our view of the binary. The disk has funneled subsequent outflows in the directions perpendicular to the disk, forming the bizarre bi-conical structure we see as the Red Rectangle. The reasons for the periodic ejections of more gas and dust, which are producing the "rungs" revealed in the Hubble image, remain unknown.
The Red Rectangle was first discovered during a rocket flight in the early 1970s, in which astronomers were searching for strong sources of infrared radiation. This infrared source lies about 2,300 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Monoceros. Stars surrounded by clouds of dust are often strong infrared sources because the dust is heated by the starlight and radiates long-wavelength light. Studies of HD 44179 with ground-based telescopes revealed a rectangular shape in the dust surrounding the star in the center, leading to the name Red Rectangle, which was coined in 1973 by astronomers Martin Cohen and Mike Merrill.
This image was made from observations taken on March 17-18, 1999, with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
For more information please visit: hubblesite.org/image/1497/news_release/2004-11
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hans Van Winckel (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), and Martin Cohen (University of California, Berkeley)
I have an updated version of this image with hydrogen-alpha data added: flic.kr/p/2jfb1hc
The Owl Nebula (in the lower left) is a planetary nebula near the star Merak in Ursa Major. M108 (in the upper right) is a barred spiral galaxy that is viewed nearly edge-on. Together, they fight crime.
I have had previous attempts at this pair. Prior to this, my most recent attempt was from Death Valley in 2015. I used some of that data here, but I also used my new favorite astrophotography move for this one: setup the frame, make sure guiding is good, then go sleep in the car with the heated seats. Always a welcome relief when the night was about 3°C like this one. (Yes, I know other astrophotographers suffer through much colder November nights.) When I awoke from my short winter's -- or, autumn's -- nap, I ran to my scope where photons did splatter! OK, OK, they hit pretty precisely on the elements of an Atik 314L+ color CCD camera. And I guess I didn't exactly run. But I had 16 300s exposures with good tracking I could work with to add to about 30 minutes of data with questionalbe tracking.
This night was so calm. My last data was taken with a pretty steady 5-10 m/s wind blowing. So, after stacking this set, I noticed background galaxies. Like, about 30+ background galaxies. If you want to see which ones, check out the annotated version of the image:
Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with Hyperstar; preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, and initial processing in Pixinsight; final touches in PS CS 5.1.
Image center is at (J2000):
RA: 11h 12m 59s
DEC: 55° 21' 22"
I felt like doing one of the big, pretty ones this time. I thought this was a proto/preplanetary nebula but it might be better described as a young planetary nebula. I'm not entirely sure. When does a planetary nebula go from being a preplanetary nebula to being a regular planetary nebula? It's kind of like the whole Pluto planet thing. Of course they are all planetary nebulas but where do you draw the line between one type and another? To add to the confusion, the name "protoplanetary" is easily confused with protoplanetary disks. I've been using "preplanetary" because that's less confusing but the inclusion of the word "planetary" is still the root of all confusion.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Look back up at NGC 6302. It's amazing. I definitely recommend looking at the original size. There are some very interesting textures in the clouds. Some areas around the brightest central regions are reminiscent of marbled stone or perhaps eddies and currents in a flowing stream of liquid.
Data use is somewhat complicated to explain, but is roughly as follows:
Stars only, affecting all channels: hst_11504_02_wfc3_uvis_f673n_sci
Red: hst_11504_01_wfc3_uvis_f658n_sci
Green: hst_11504_01_wfc3_uvis_f502n_sci
Blue: hst_11504_02_wfc3_uvis_f469n_sci+hst_11504_02_wfc3_uvis_f373n_sci
North is NOT up. It's 38.9° clockwise from up.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope obtained this image of the strikingly unusual planetary nebula NGC 6751. Glowing in the constellation Aquila like a giant eye, the nebula is a cloud of gas ejected several thousand years ago from the hot star visible in its center.
"Planetary nebulae" are named after their round shapes as seen visually in small telescopes, and have nothing else to do with planets. They are shells of gas thrown off by stars of masses similar to that of our own Sun, when the stars are nearing the ends of their lives. The loss of the outer layers of the star into space exposes the hot stellar core, whose strong ultraviolet radiation then causes the ejected gas to fluoresce as the planetary nebula. Our own Sun is predicted to eject its planetary nebula some 6 billion years from now.
The nebula shows several remarkable and poorly understood features. Blue regions mark the hottest glowing gas, which forms a roughly circular ring around the central stellar remnant. Orange and red show the locations of cooler gas. The cool gas tends to lie in long streamers pointing away from the central star, and in a surrounding, tattered-looking ring at the outer edge of the nebula. The origin of these cooler clouds within the nebula is still uncertain, but the streamers are clear evidence that their shapes are affected by radiation and stellar winds from the hot star at the center. The star's surface temperature is estimated at a scorching 140,000 degrees Celsius (250,000 degrees Fahrenheit).
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/956/news_release/2000-12
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Dare to be different ⭐ ⭐
A planetary nebula is made up of gas and dust ejected from a star, like our Sun, late in its life. They’re typically circular, elliptical, or bi-polar, but some stray from the norm! Webb’s newest look at NGC 6072 reveals an unusual, asymmetrical scene, potentially caused by a binary star system (two stars orbiting one another)!
This image is from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and it highlights the multiple elliptical outflows jetting out from the center. Astronomers say this is evidence that there are likely at least two stars here. Specifically, a companion star is interacting with an aging star that had already begun to shed some of its outer layers of gas and dust.
Astronomers are using Webb to study planetary nebulae to learn more about the full life cycle of stars and how they impact their surrounding environments. Webb’s imaging of NGC 6072 opens the door to studying how the planetary nebulae with more complex shapes contribute to this process.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/4ffyGcq
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Image description:
Colorful, mostly red glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape that is illuminated from within by a bright central star. The asymmetrical shape resembles a large squished bug on the ground. In the center, a light blue glow appears over areas of dark pockets that look dark blue and are traced with orange material. It has a clumpy appearance. Shells of gas and dust appear as lobes stretching from roughly 11 to 5 o’clock, another from 1 to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 to 6 o’clock. The shells become a deeper red with distance from the center. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disk that appears to span from 9 to 3 o’clock. The background of space is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.
While imaging the Heart Nebula for the third time, I noticed a new detail while processing the Ha data -- the planetary nebula WeBo 1 (also known as PN G135.6+01.0). This planetary nebula {PN) is located about 5,000 ly away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The PN is about 1 arc-minute wide (the full moon is 30 arc minutes wide), corresponding to a length of 1.5 ly. We are seeing the PN from an almost edge-on perspective, so the circular ring around the central star appears elliptical.
The central star has been determined spectroscopically to be a barium star. Barium stars are spectral class G to K stars whose spectra indicate an overabundance of slow neutron-capture process (s-process) elements by the presence of singly ionized barium. The s-process is responsible for the creation of approximately half the atomic nuclei heavier than iron.
Observational studies suggest that all barium stars are binary stars. This PN's barium star's companion is a white dwarf and is no longer visible to us. This binary system has a 5-day rotation period. This binary rotation led to the Ha gas being preferentially ejected in an orbital plane rather than a sphere, so WeBo 1 is surrounded by a ring of gas instead of a sphere.
WeBo 1 was first identified in 1995 on Digitized Sky Survey images.
Rio Rancho NM Bortle 5 zone,
Oct 26-28, 2023
William Optics Redcat 51
ZWO 183mm pro
ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini
ZWO ASI Air Pro
Sky-Watcher HEQ5
272 X 300s Ha
Darks flats dithering GraXpert
Gain 111 at -10C
Processed in DSS and PS
Dare to be different ⭐ ⭐
A planetary nebula is made up of gas and dust ejected from a star, like our Sun, late in its life. They’re typically circular, elliptical, or bi-polar, but some stray from the norm! Webb’s newest look at NGC 6072 reveals an unusual, asymmetrical scene, potentially caused by a binary star system (two stars orbiting one another)!
This image shows longer wavelengths captured by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). This image highlights dust, revealing a star as a small pinkish-white dot that researchers suspect could be a main player in this scene. This image also shows concentric rings expanding from the central region with the most clear rings just past the edges of the lobes. These rings may be additional evidence that this is a binary star system. The secondary star, as it circles around the original star, could have carved out rings of material in a bullseye pattern as the main star was expelling mass during an earlier stage of its life.
Astronomers are using Webb to study planetary nebulae to learn more about the full life cycle of stars and how they impact their surrounding environments. Webb’s imaging of NGC 6072 opens the door to studying how the planetary nebulae with more complex shapes contribute to this process.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/4foYu5R
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Image description:
Colorful, mostly blue image of mid-infrared light from a glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape. A star at the center of the image is a small point of pinkish-white light. The asymmetrical shape of the expanding cloud of gas and dust resembles paint splattered on the ground. The filaments of the expanding shells are wispy, and mostly white and blue. The shells appear as lobes stretching from roughly 11 to 5 o’clock, another from 1 to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 to 6 o’clock. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disk that appears to span from 9 to 3 o’clock. A perfect circle of whitish blue dust traces the outer edges of the shells. The background of the image is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.
The Dumbbell Nebula is a beautiful planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula. Its relatively high surface brightness makes it visible in virtually all telescopes (even binoculars).
For this one I borrowed a *real* astro CCD camera from a friend (thanks John!). It sees the red light of the Hydrogen emissions much better than my Nikon (which has an IR blocking filter that also partially blocks the part of the spectrum that Hydrogen emits in). Compare to my shot from two years ago where the blue Oxygen emissions show up much more.
Technical info about the image:
Object: M27, The Dumbbell Nebula
Sky: LM ~5
Mount: CGEM
Imaging scope: C9.25 at f/6.3
Imaging FL: 1480mm
Imaging camera: SBIG ST-4000XCM
Lights: 91x180s (4.5h)
Calibration: 5 sky flats, 36 darks
Guide scope: Orion 9x50 finder scope!
Guide camera: Meade DSI I (2s intervals)
Other details: Images acquired with CCDOPS v5, guided with PHD (using GPUSB), calibrated and stacked using Deep Sky Stacker, post-processed in Photoshop CS5.
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Looking for a better astronomy planner for iOS? Head over to my profile for a link to Observer Pro.
This planetary nebula is one of the closest nebula to Earth. Its distance is about 650 ly from Earth. This beautiful nebula is produced by death of a star like our Sun in size. Sometimes, its called “Eye of God” or “Eye of Sauron” like in Lord of the Ring movie. Gear Setup: William Optics 71 APO Zenithstar + F/F, iOptron iEQ 30pro unguided, Acquisition by APT, 60 x 30 sec subs @ 0 degree, 20 Darks, 20 Flats, 20 Bias. Total exposure 30 minutes @ 15 degree over horizon over a light polluted area (Not great for imaging condition). Stacked by DSS and processed by PS 2020 CC, photo is cropped.
First attempt at a planetary nebula. Exposures taken over three warm nights. With the sun almost not setting here in the north getting time to gather some photons is scarce. On the other hand, at least the weather (clouds) doesn't suck as much as it did when the nights where still long.
The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light-years.
This object was the first planetary nebula to be discovered; by Charles Messier in 1764. At its brightness of visual magnitude 7.5 and its diameter of about 8 arcminutes, it is easily visible in binoculars,[5] and a popular observing target in amateur telescopes.
A complementary near-far juxtaposition. In the lower left is the relatively nearby ball of glowing gas known as M97 or the Owl Nebula, and at upper right is the much more distant spiral galaxy M108. Other even more distant galaxies appear in the same frame. The stars and the nebula are all in our Milky Way Galaxy a few thousand light-years away while M108, also known as NGC 3556 is at an astounding 32 million light-years away.
80 exposures, 6 minutes each, Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 refractor, ZWO ASI294MC camera, dual narrow-band filter (Hα,[O III]), iOptron CEM25P mount, ASIAir controller. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Lightroom.
There’s just one Ring Nebula to rule them all. Now Webb has turned its eye on this popular target, revealing the complexity of its structure in unprecedented detail — as well the possibility that the dying star at its center has a companion.
Shown here are two views of this nebula, one taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the left, and one taken by its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the right. MIRI provided the sharpest and clearest view of the faint halo outside the bright ring. Physical features within suggest there may be a companion star helping to sculpt the layers thrown off by the dying star.
The Ring Nebula is a “planetary nebula,” originally named for having a planet-like appearance through small telescopes. In actuality, planetary nebulae are the remains of a star’s death throes. And while the Ring Nebula resembles a ring when seen face-on, it's more of a donut shape (a torus) when viewed in three dimensions!
Learn more: blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/08/21/webb-reveals-intricate-det...
This image: This new image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows intricate details of the filament structure of the inner ring. There are some 20,000 dense globules in the nebula, which are rich in molecular hydrogen. In contrast, the inner region shows very hot gas. The main shell contains a thin ring of enhanced emission from carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)
Image description: Webb’s near-infrared view of the Ring Nebula has a different color palette. This time, the nebula’s inner cavity hosts shades of blue and green, while the detailed ring transitions through shades of orange in the inner regions and pink in the outer region. Stars litter the scene, with a particularly prominent star with 8 long spikes in the top right corner.
The Bug Nebula, NGC 6302, is one of the brightest and most extreme planetary nebulae known. The fiery, dying star at its center is shrouded by a blanket of icy hailstones. This NASA Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image shows impressive walls of compressed gas, laced with trailing strands and bubbling outflows. A dark, dusty torus surrounds the inner nebula (seen at the upper right).
At the heart of the turmoil is one of the hottest stars known. Despite a sizzling temperature of at least 450,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the star itself has never been seen, as it is hidden by the blanket of dust and shines most brightly in the ultraviolet, making it hard to observe. The Bug Nebula lies about 4,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Scorpius.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/1628/news_release/2004-46
Credit: NASA, ESA, and A.Zijlstra (UMIST, Manchester, UK)
Edited European Southern Observatory image of the planetary nebula NGC 6781.
Original caption: Stars such as our Sun do not contain enough mass to finish their lives in the glorious explosions known as supernovae. However, they are still able to salute their imminent demise into dense, Earth-sized embers called white dwarfs by first expelling colourful shells of gas known as planetary nebulae. This misnomer comes from the similarity in appearance of these spherical mass expulsions to giant planets when seen through small telescopes. NGC 6781 is a nice representative of these cosmic bubbles. The planetary nebula lies a few thousand light-years away towards the constellation of Aquila (the Eagle) and is approximately two light-years across. Within NGC 6781, shells of gas blown off from the faint, but very hot, central star’s surface expand out into space. These shells shine under the harsh ultraviolet radiation from the progenitor star in intricate and beautiful patterns. The central star will steadily cool down and darken, eventually disappearing from view into cosmic oblivion. This image was captured with the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (EFOSC2) through three wide band filters (B, V, R) and two narrow-band ones (H-alpha, OIII). EFOSC2 is attached to the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. EFOSC2 has a field of view of 4.1 x 4.1 arcminutes.
This Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 7027 shows remarkable details of the process by which a star like the Sun dies.
Features include faint, blue, concentric shells surrounding the nebula; an extensive network of red dust clouds throughout the bright inner region; and the hot central white dwarf, visible as a white dot at the center.
The nebula is a record of the star's final death throes. Initially the ejection of the star's outer layers, when it was at its red-giant stage of evolution, occurred at a low rate and was spherical. The Hubble photo reveals that the initial ejections occurred episodically to produce the concentric shells. This culminated in a vigorous ejection of all of the remaining outer layers, which produced the bright inner regions. At this later stage the ejection was non-spherical, and dense clouds of dust condensed from the ejected material.
The photograph was taken as part of a survey of planetary nebulae, which are clouds of gas and dust ejected from stars with masses similar to that of the Sun as they reach the end of their lives. NGC 7027 is located about 3,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cygnus.
When a star like the Sun nears the end of its life, it expands to more than 50 times its original diameter, becoming a red giant star. Then its outer layers are ejected into space, exposing the small, extremely hot core of the star, which cools off to become a white dwarf. Although stars like the Sun can live for up to 10 billion years before becoming a red giant and ejecting a nebula, the actual ejection process takes only a few thousand years.
The NGC 7027 photograph is a composite of two Hubble images, taken in visible and infrared light, and is shown in "pseudo-color."
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/395/news_release/1996-05
Credit: H. Bond (STScI) and NASA
Pretty and detailed planetary nebula NGC 2818. I can't find the central star. I think it might be behind that one bright dust pillar which is crossing the center. That dust is probably extending out from the core and being blown straight toward our line of sight. Just like any nebula, it's difficult to say anything about the three dimensional structure of the nebula. There's no way to measure the distances of individual parts of the clouds so we have to rely on visual clues to make a best guess.
For more information:
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2818
An APOD: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090122.html
Red: hst_11956_06_wfpc2_f673n_wf_sci + hst_11956_06_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_11956_06_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci
Blue: hst_11956_06_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up. It's 15° counter-clockwise from up.
A giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The object, aptly named the Necklace Nebula, is a recently discovered planetary nebula, the glowing remains of an ordinary, Sun-like star. The nebula consists of a bright ring, measuring 12 trillion miles across, dotted with dense, bright knots of gas that resemble diamonds in a necklace. The knots glow brightly due to absorption of ultraviolet light from the central pair of stars.
Two stars orbiting very close together produced the nebula, also called PN G054.2-03.4. About 10,000 years ago one of the aging stars ballooned to the point where it enveloped its companion star. This caused the larger star to spin so fast that much of its gaseous envelope expanded into space. Due to centrifugal force, most of the gas escaped along the star's equator, producing a dense ring. The embedded bright knots are the densest gas clumps in the ring.
The stars are furiously whirling around each other, completing an orbit in a little more than a day. (For comparison, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, takes 88 days to orbit the Sun.)
The Necklace Nebula is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta (the Arrow). In this composite image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on July 2, 2011, captured the glow of hydrogen (blue), oxygen (green), and nitrogen (red).
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2886/news_release/2011-24
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
M27 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula, one of the brightest in the sky. It is the luminous shell of gas sloughed off by a dying central star.
Takahashi Sky 90 at f/4.5
SBIG STL-4020M (self-guided)
Takahashi EM-200
Hutech LPS Filter
Ha: 3:40 (20 minute subexposures)
Luminance: 1:40 (5 minute subexposures)
RGB: 30 minutes each channel (5 minute subexposures, taken on 2006-06-25)
Processed in Maxim/DL, ImagesPlus, and Photoshop
Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools Actions
Wide Field view of M108 and M97 in Ursa Major.
Messier 108 (also known as NGC 3556) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. From the perspective of the Earth, this galaxy is seen almost edge-on. This galaxy is a member of the Ursa Major Cluster of galaxies in the Virgo supercluster. Messier 97 (also known as NGC 3587) ~ The Owl Nebula is a planetary nebula located some 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Brightest star in this field of view is magnitude 6.62 (HIP54765).
PHOTO DETAILS: photographed on January 3, 2014 and includes 14 x 60 second exposures and 5 x 90 second exposures (total 21.5 minutes). A Canon T4i and Canon EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens at ISO 800 were used. The camera was mounted on a ZEQ25GT mount from iOptron. Photo's were stacked in ImagesPlus and final editing done in Corel PaintshopPro X6 and X5.
At magnitude 8 and less than an arcminute is size, the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009) is one of the brightest Planetary Nebula in the night sky. And one of the prettiest and most interesting in a small telescope. It is also one of the few Planetary Nebula, I think, that looks better without a nebula filter than with. The central star (a White Dwarf) is easy to spot at magnitude 11.5.
The Saturn nebula gets its name because it reminds one of viewing the planet Saturn when the rings are edge on. The so-called rings appear on the Planetary Nebula as distinct handles (called ansae) even in small telescopes. Be sure to up the magnification since the planetary is small. In fact, when scanning to first locate NGC 7009 under low power look for a slightly-fuzzy, green or blue star – only by adding magnification do the ansae and the Central Star become apparent.
I have over fifty-years of notes and drawings of the Saturn Nebula. Most striking to me when I look through my past observation records is what color I reported. Over the years, distinctly-blue, light-blue, greenish, solid-green and pale-greenish-white are some of my color observations of the Saturn Nebula.
The color can be influenced on many factors including, sky transparency, amount of light pollution, size of telescope, visual genes of the observer, age of observer and possibly even the mood of the observer. Still I am surprised at the wide range of color renditions that I have recorded for the Saturn Nebula over time.
This observation/drawing was done through a 110mm high-quality apo-refractor under reasonably good sky conditions (for Maryland), with 69 year-old-eyes. I saw the Saturn Nebula as greenish.
To see additional astronomy drawings visit: www.orrastrodrawing.com
This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the colorful "last hurrah" of a star like our Sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star's remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the material glow. The burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center. Our Sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris, but not for another 5 billion years.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is littered with these stellar relics, called planetary nebulae. The objects have nothing to do with planets. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century astronomers named them planetary nebulae because through small telescopes they resembled the disks of the distant planets Uranus and Neptune.
The planetary nebula in this image is called NGC 2440. The white dwarf at the center of NGC 2440 is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature of nearly 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit (200,000 degrees Celsius). The nebula's chaotic structure suggests that the star shed its mass episodically. During each outburst, the star expelled material in a different direction. This can be seen in the two bow tie-shaped lobes. The nebula also is rich in clouds of dust, some of which form long, dark streaks pointing away from the star. NGC 2440 lies about 4,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Puppis.
The image was taken February 6, 2007, with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The colors correspond to material expelled by the star. Blue corresponds to helium, blue-green to oxygen, and red to nitrogen and hydrogen.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2058/news_release/2007-09
Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Noll (STScI)
Acknowledgment: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Abell 78 is the colourful remnant of a dying star that has shed its spent hydrogen and helium layers at the end of its life. The outer shell contains large amounts of ionized hydrogen, while the inner shell contains large amounts of helium. This very dim object is located in Cygnus.
I took this image using the equipment at the Mount Lemmon Sky Center, under the guidance of Adam Block.
24" RCOS Carbon Truss f/8
SBIG STL-11000M (self-guided)
Luminance: 150 minutes (15 minute exposures)
RGB: 100:80:80 (10 minute exposures)
Processed with Maxim/DL and Photoshop CS3
Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope obtained this image of the planetary nebula NGC 6369. This object is known to amateur astronomers as the Little Ghost Nebula, because it appears as a small, ghostly cloud surrounding the faint, dying central star. NGC 6369 lies in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, at a distance estimated to be between about 2,000 and 5,000 light-years from Earth.
When a star with a mass similar to that of our own Sun nears the end of its lifetime, it expands in size to become a red giant. The red-giant stage ends when the star expels its outer layers into space, producing a faintly glowing nebula. Astronomers call such an object a planetary nebula, because its round shape resembles that of a planet when viewed with a small telescope.
The Hubble photograph of NGC 6369, captured with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in February 2002, reveals remarkable details of the ejection process that are not visible from ground-based telescopes because of the blurring produced by Earth's atmosphere.
The remnant stellar core in the center is now sending out a flood of ultraviolet (UV) light into the surrounding gas. The prominent blue-green ring, nearly a light-year in diameter, marks the location where the energetic UV light has stripped electrons off of atoms in the gas. This process is called ionization. In the redder gas at larger distances from the star, where the UV light is less intense, the ionization process is less advanced. Even farther outside the main body of the nebula, one can see fainter wisps of gas that were lost from the star at the beginning of the ejection process.
The color image has been produced by combining WFPC2 pictures taken through filters that isolate light emitted by three different chemical elements with different degrees of ionization. The doughnut-shaped blue-green ring represents light from ionized oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons (blue) and from hydrogen atoms that have lost their single electrons (green). Red marks emission from nitrogen atoms that have lost only one electron.
Our own Sun may eject a similar nebula, but not for another 5 billion years. The gas will expand away from the star at about 15 miles per second, dissipating into interstellar space after some 10,000 years. After that, the remnant stellar ember in the center will gradually cool off for billions of years as a tiny white dwarf star and eventually wink out.
For more information please visit: hubblesite.org/image/1251/news_release/2002-25
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
The round green object near the center of this image is known as the Owl Nebula. It appears to have two large eyes that make it look like the face of an owl. It is a planetary nebula located near the Big Dipper and is approximately 2,030 light-years away.
Planetary nebulae were thought to be planets by early astronomers as they had mostly roundish shapes. We now know them to be expanding glowing shells of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. Our Sun will become a planetary nebula long after we have shuffled off this mortal coil.
But wait, there's more!
You can also see a galaxy known as the Surfboard Galaxy to the lower left of the Owl. Its official name is Messier 108 and it is located approximately 46 million light-years away.
At the center of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole estimated to be 24 million times as massive as the Sun. The Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered multiple X-ray sources in M108, with the brightest X-ray source suspected to be an intermediately sized black hole that is actively accreting material.
I took this on 4-3-21 at Garland Mountain in Waleska, Georgia.
This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image captures the infancy of the Stingray Nebula (Hen-1357), the youngest known planetary nebula.
A planetary nebula forms after an aging, low-mass star swells to become a "red giant" and blows off some of its outer layers of material. As the nebula expands away from the star, the star's remaining core gets hotter and heats the gas until it glows.
In this image, the bright central star is in the middle of the green ring of gas. A companion star is diagonally above it at 10 o'clock. A spur of gas (green) is forming a faint bridge to the companion star due to gravitational attraction.
The image also shows a ring of gas (green) surrounding the central star, with bubbles of gas to the lower left and upper right of the ring. The wind of material propelled by radiation from the hot central star has created enough pressure to blow open holes in the ends of the bubbles, allowing gas to escape.
The red curved lines represent bright gas that is heated by a "shock" caused when the central star's wind hits the walls of the bubbles.
The nebula is as large as 130 solar systems, but at its distance of 18,000 light-years, it appears only as big as a dime viewed a mile away. The Stingray is located in the direction of the southern constellation Ara (the Altar).
The colors shown are actual colors emitted by nitrogen (red), oxygen (green), and hydrogen (blue). The observations were made in March 1996.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/653/news_release/1998-15
Credit: NASA and Matt Bobrowsky (Orbital Sciences Corporation)
Nikon D80 placed at the focal plane of the eyepiece for the 60" telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. This is a stack of 7 75s exposures at ISO 1600. Geo was our telescope operator this night. Calibration and initial processing in PixInsight; final processing in PS CS 5.1. I would have thought we could use shorter exposures, but then I remembered we were shooting at about a focal ratio of f/20 - roughly a 30m focal length.
Beautiful Planetary Nebula. The name "Dumbbell" comes from its appearance to the eye at the telescope. The red regions (hydrogen) are the easiest to see which give the dumbbell shape. The greenish blue regions are caused by forbidden transition lines from oxygen gas. The gas itself has been expelled by the "blue" star in the centre that is transforming into a white dwarf, just as our own Sun will one day. This image is a composite of B,V, R Johnson-cousins filters. Data gathered from the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) in Victoria, British Columbia with 60 second exposure times.
From Locoal-Mendon (Brittany)
TS-Optics 10" f/4 UNC, HDX110 EQ-G, ZWO ASI2600MC, ST80, SSAG
Acquisition : NINA, PHD Guiding
Processing : PixInsight
Addition of 60 images (60x300s, Gain:100, Offset:1, f/4)
FoV : 43'x29'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbbell_Nebula
Instagram: @vincent.bchm