Posted on 06/30/2020 8:09:50 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: What created this unusual planetary nebula? NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given its expansion rate, NGC 7027 first started expanding, as visible from Earth, about 600 years ago. For much of its history, the planetary nebula has been expelling shells, as seen in blue in the featured image. In modern times, though, for reasons unknown, it began ejecting gas and dust (seen in red) in specific directions that created a new pattern that seems to have four corners. These shells and patterns have been mapped in impressive detail by recent images from the Wide Field Camera 3 onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. What lies at the nebula's center is unknown, with one hypothesis holding it to be a close binary star system where one star sheds gas onto an erratic disk orbiting the other star. NGC 7027, about 3,000 light years away, was first discovered in 1878 and can be seen with a standard backyard telescope toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
Wow.
Wonder what it looks like on all sides.
They don’t look like that in my 12.5 newt.
If it’s like other square-shaped planetary nebulae, it’s probably a cylinder-like shape seen from the side.
*APOD ping*
Yeah, that's one of the biggest disappointments newcomers to amateur astronomy have when they compare photographs like that to almost most astronomical objects. Turns alot of people off.
It's like promoting the very partial lunar eclipse eclipse this weekend. It's so shallow even people aware it's happening won't be able to notice anything.
I like nebulas, they're so nebulous.
Yeh, I may still sit out and watch some...depending on the weather.
I have seen near photo views through my scope when the air is still. And, if you use my buddy’s 22 Obsession, you really do get some good views.
A few years ago, I got to have an observing session with Al Nagler. While we were looking around, he pulled out a little device he had been helping to work on.
Monocular low light device, white light (not green like many others),and it could be attached to the 22in scope. We looked at M8 everyone that looked through the scope spent a good bit of scope time just trying to find the edge of the nebula. They were near photographic views. If you just pointed it at the sky, you could see all kinds of gas clouds in the Milky Way, that you couldn’t see in your scope. Putting an OIII filter made it even better.
A bit closer to what I usually see. But I tend to look for 14th mag galaxies.
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