The Dumbbell Nebula

Eso_eso9846a_1024

eso_eso9846a October 7th, 1998

Credit: ESO/I. Appenzeller, W. Seifert, O. Stahl, M. Zamani

The Dumbbell Nebula ­— also known as Messier 27 or NGC 6853 — is a typical planetary nebula and is located in the constellation Vulpecula (The Fox). The distance is rather uncertain, but is believed to be around 1,200 light-years. It was first described by the French astronomer and comet hunter Charles Messier who found it in 1764 and included it as no. 27 in his famous list of extended sky objects [2] .Despite its class, the Dumbbell Nebula has nothing to do with planets. It consists of very rarified gas that has been ejected from the hot central star (well visible on this photo), now in one of the last evolutionary stages. The gas atoms in the nebula are excited (heated) by the intense ultraviolet radiation from this star and emit strongly at specific wavelengths.This image is the beautiful by-product of a technical test of some FORS1 narrow-band optical interference filtres. They only allow light in a small wavelength range to pass and are used to isolate emissions from particular atoms and ions. In this three-colour composite, a short exposure was first made through a wide-band filtre registering blue light from the nebula. It was then combined with exposures through two interference filtres in the light of double-ionized oxygen atoms and atomic hydrogen. They were colour-coded as “blue”, “green” and “red”, respectively, and then combined to produce this picture that shows the structure of the nebula in “approximately true” colours.They are three-colour composite based on two interference ([OIII] at 501 nm and 6 nm FWHM — 5 min exposure time; H-alpha at 656 nm and 6 nm FWHM — 5 min) and one broadband (Bessell B at 429 nm and 88 nm FWHM; 30 sec) filtre images, obtained on September 28, 1998, during mediocre seeing conditions (0.8 arcsec). The CCD camera has 2048 x 2048 pixels, each covering 24 x 24 µm and the sky fields shown measure 6.8 x 6.8 arcminutes and 3.5 x 3.9 arcminutes, respectively. North is up; East is left.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9846a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Dumbbell Nebula M 27 Messier 27 NGC 6853
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Eso_eso9846a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 19h 59m 36.4s
DEC = 22° 43’ 16.0”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
6.8 x 6.8 arcminutes
Constellation
Vulpecula

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue VLT (FORS1) Optical (u) 361.0 nm
Orange VLT (FORS1) Optical (R) 655.0 nm
Yellow VLT (FORS1) Optical (HeII) 472.0 nm
Cyan VLT (FORS1) Optical (B) 429.0 nm
Red VLT (FORS1) Optical (H-alpha) 656.0 nm
Green VLT (FORS1) Optical (Oiii) 501.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Blue
Orange
Yellow
Cyan
Red
Green
Eso_eso9846a_1280
×
ID
eso9846a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
Dumbbell Nebula, M 27, Messier 27, NGC 6853
Credits
ESO/I. Appenzeller, W. Seifert, O. Stahl, M. Zamani
Release Date
1998-10-07T00:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9846a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
FORS1, FORS1, FORS1, FORS1, FORS1, FORS1
Color Assignment
Blue, Orange, Yellow, Cyan, Red, Green
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
u, R, HeII, B, H-alpha, Oiii
Central Wavelength
361, 655, 472, 429, 656, 501
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
299.901693, 22.721112
Reference Dimension
4961.0, 5004.0
Reference Pixel
2447.1423587, 2640.83683414
Scale
-2.270302e-05, 2.270302e-05
Rotation
0
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
eso9846a
Metadata Date
2023-10-11T09:27:12.574386
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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