It's not much to look at, but this planetary nebula is pretty much amazing. To understand why, first one must understand why the oxygen content is important. If you check out the Wiki article on metallicity you find that the ages of stars are determined like this. So, essentially, for this planetary nebula, the less oxygen there is, the older it is presumed to be. The HST Proposal even suggested that perhaps this was a Population III PN, but alas, that is not the case. Still, it had astronomers going for a while because it is so oxygen-poor. It's the most oxygen-poor PN yet known and it's way out there in our galactic halo.
Other interesting bits include the fact that the central star is a close binary with an orbital period of only a few hours and the possibility of this sucker one day becoming a Type Ia supernova. How cool would that be? You never know when it might happen. Ok, probably not while I'm still alive, but whatever, I'm not giving up hope. You can do it, TS 01!
All of this and more I got from this paper, "The chemical composition of TS 01, the most oxygen-deficient planetary nebula. AGB nucleosynthesis in a metal-poor binary star" by G. Stasinska, et al.
In 2003, HST was instructed to look at this object for more than four hours to bring you this image, meager as it seems.
Red: HST_9466_01_ACS_HRC_F658N_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: HST_9466_01_ACS_HRC_F344N_sci
North is up.
Tags: planetary nebula TS 01 HST HLA Hubble spectroscopic binary galactic halo PN G135.9+55.9 SBSS 1150+599
This nebula is named after Jacoby and Fulton who, along with others, were rewarded with the discovery of this tiny planetary nebula buried in the haze of stars known as the loose globular cluster Palomar 6. Finding the few existing planetary nebulas in globular clusters is something like the astronomer's ultimate game of Where's Waldo. Congratulations, guys. Anyway, this curious blob (or perhaps the name itself: "What's a JaFu??") managed to catch my attention in the archive so I went ahead and processed it.
Obviously, wideband filters barely reveal the little feller at all. The nebula is mainly visible in the F656N (H-alpha) & F502N (OIII) data. I toned the wideband data down quite a bit to tame the various bright stars.
Red: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci + hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci
Green: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: ACS/WFC F502N (jb1w02010_drz)
North is up.
Tags: JaFu1 planetary nebula Palomar 6 globular cluster HST HLA Hubble needle in a haystack
A smaller but pretty cool nebula. Looks a lot like a goat's eye to me. I was a little surprised to find this. It's definitely a hidden treasure.
Red: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
All channels, stars only (white): hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f588n_pc_sci
North is NOT up. It is 27° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: M1-42 planetary nebula HST HLA Hubble
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.
Tags: NGC 2818 planetary nebula HST HLA Hubble 2818
Well, this looks like a preplanetary nebula to me, but we all know looks can deceive. I do know that there is no strict line between a preplanetary and a planetary nebula so it is understandable that I wonder why this one is is not classified as preplanetary. Anyway, it's also one of those weird planetaries with a WC Wolf-Rayet central star. It wouldn't be the first time I've been thrown off by one of those. Strange. It might not even be a planetary nebula but rather more precisely an ejecta shell. Oh well, another day, another nebula.
Red: HST_9463_80_ACS_HRC_F606W_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: HST_9463_80_ACS_HRC_F435W_sci
North is up.
Tags: IRAS 17047-5650 Hen 3-1333 planetary nebula Wolf-Rayet WC HST HLA Hubble