To Be Determined!

Click on image for larger version.


 This very small planetary nebula has a very interesting story. To date, it has no catalogued name; Indeed, this may be the first time anyone has taken note of it! Dana Patchick and his group of amateur astronomers, called the "Deep Sky Hunters," comb, sift, and pore over archived images of the night sky in search of unnoticed and unnamed objects. Star clusters, nebulae, and here a planetary nebula make for potential targets. The "discovery" image is from an archive called the Digitized Sky Survey and it is displayed below the color picture on this page. As you can see, it takes a pretty good eye to catch something as subtle as this!

Equipment

20in RC Optical Systems telescope Operating at f/8.4
Paramount ME Robotic Telescope Mount
SBIG ST10XME CCD camera with color filter wheel

R R G B color production was used to create this image.

Luminance = 60 minutes binned 1x1
 Red = 20 minutes binned 2x2
 Green = 20 minutes binned 2x2
 Blue = 20 minutes binned 2x2
  • Taken during very poor seeing and windy (30+ mph) conditions.

    • Minimum credit line: Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

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    Updated: 5/25/2004