A star's colourful final splash

Esahubble_potw1010a_1024

esahubble_potw1010a June 28th, 2010

Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this beautiful image of NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a central star nearing the end of its life. When a star ages and the red giant phase of its life comes to an end, it starts to eject layers of gas from its surface leaving behind a hot and compact white dwarf. Sometimes this ejection results in elegantly symmetric patterns of glowing gas, but NGC 6326 is much less structured. This object is located in the constellation of Ara, the Altar, about 11 000 light-years from Earth. Planetary nebulae are one of the main ways in which elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are dispersed into space after their creation in the hearts of stars. Eventually some of this outflung material may form new stars and planets. The vivid red and blue hues in this image come from the material glowing under the action of the fierce ultraviolet radiation from the still hot central star. This picture was created from images taken using the Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The red light was captured through a filter letting through the glow from hydrogen gas (F658N). The blue glow comes from ionised oxygen and was recorded through a green filter (F502N). The green layer of the image, which shows the stars well, was taken through a broader yellow filter (F555W). The total exposure times were 1400 s, 360 s and 260 s respectively. The field of view is about 30 arcseconds across.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1010a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 6326
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_potw1010a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 20m 46.0s
DEC = -51° 45’ 14.3”
Orientation
North is 15.8° CCW
Field of View
0.5 x 0.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Ara

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (H-alpha) 658.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Oii) 502.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw1010a_1280
×
ID
potw1010a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
NGC 6326
Credits
ESA/Hubble and NASA
Release Date
2010-06-28T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1010a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, WFPC2, WFPC2
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
H-alpha, V, Oii
Central Wavelength
658, 555, 502
Start Time
Integration Time
1400, 260, 360
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
260.191844474, -51.7539797899
Reference Dimension
690.0, 601.0
Reference Pixel
345.0, 300.0
Scale
-1.25873831686e-05, 1.25873831686e-05
Rotation
15.84000000000003
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1010a
Metadata Date
2010-06-24T10:22:05+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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