Looking down a barrel of gas at a doomed star

Esahubble_opo9901a_1024

esahubble_opo9901a January 6th, 1999

Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA )

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M57). In this October 1998 image, the telescope has looked down a barrel of gas cast off by a dying star thousands of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula; the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2, 000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9901a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Ring Nebula
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_opo9901a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 18h 53m 34.9s
DEC = 33° 1’ 41.9”
Orientation
North is 33.4° CW
Field of View
2.0 x 2.1 arcminutes
Constellation
Lyra

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Nii) 658.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Oii) 501.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Heii) 469.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_opo9901a_1280
×
ID
opo9901a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
Ring Nebula
Credits
Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA )
Release Date
1999-01-06T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9901a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from: http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/137/4/3815/fulltext
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, Oii, Heii
Central Wavelength
658, 501, 469
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
283.3952831, 33.0282982
Reference Dimension
1215.0, 1241.0
Reference Pixel
608.5, 621.5
Scale
2.76245061661e-05, 2.76388011343e-05
Rotation
-33.4
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
WCS info from NASA/Hubble
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
opo9901a
Metadata Date
2003-12-09T17:52:34+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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