The Hourglass Nebula

Esahubble_opo9607a_1024

esahubble_opo9607a January 16th, 1996

Credit: Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, and NASA/ESA

This is an image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This Hubble image reveals the true shape of MyCn18 to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern of 'etchings' in its walls. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken in the light of ionized nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green), and doubly-ionized oxygen (blue). The results are of great interest because they shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. In previous ground-based images, MyCn18 appears to be a pair of large outer rings with a smaller central one, but the fine details cannot be seen.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9607a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Hourglass Nebula MyCn 18
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_opo9607a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 13h 39m 35.1s
DEC = -67° 22’ 52.1”
Orientation
North is 155.4° CW
Field of View
0.4 x 0.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Musca

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Nii) -
Green Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (H-alpha) -
Blue Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Oiii) -
Esahubble_opo9607a_1280
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ID
opo9607a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
Hourglass Nebula, MyCn 18
Credits
Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, and NASA/ESA
Release Date
1996-01-16T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9607a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004ASPC..313..104B
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, WFPC2, WFPC2
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
Nii, H-alpha, Oiii
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
204.896316246, -67.3811503146
Reference Dimension
540.0, 537.0
Reference Pixel
270.0, 268.5
Scale
-1.25729112898e-05, 1.25729112898e-05
Rotation
-155.43999999999963
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
opo9607a
Metadata Date
2003-12-09T17:45:57+01:00
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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