Abell 31 (Gary Imm)

Abell 31

This object, also known as PK219+31.1 and Sh2-290, is a large dim planetary nebula located 1800 light years away in the constellation of Cancer at a declination of +9 degrees. It is a magnitude 15.5 PN which spans 17 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 8.5 light years, much larger than the average PN diameter of 2 light years.

Like many PN, the outer rim is stronger in HII while the inner section is stronger in OIII. The PN is a bit distorted from interaction with the ISM, especially on the lower right edge. The progenitor star is the small star at the center of the nebula, as shown on the mouseover, with the characteristic cyan progenitor color.

This ancient planetary nebula is one of the largest (and therefore one of the oldest) in the sky. The subtle void areas throughout indicate the dispersion of gas into space. This dispersion will eventually dim this PN from our view.

The mouseover also shows 3 of the galaxies in the image. IC 523, at upper right, is a 100,000 light year diameter spiral galaxy located 420 million light years away. At left and obscured by the nebula, SDSS J085443.40+085652.6 is part of the same galaxy group as IC 523. It is of similar size and distance as IC 523.

At top, and also obscured by the nebula, is the smallest galaxy in apparent size, 2MASX J08541497+0859112. This galaxy is 70,000 light years in diameter and is almost 1 billion light years away.

Original
E

E

Description: Annotated mouseover

Uploaded: ...

Sharpless2 Objects
Planetary Nebulae
Celestron RASA
Abell Planetary Nebula
ASI 6200 MM Pro
CMOS Imagers
Cloudy Nights
Texas Astronomy
RASA Images

100 Most Recent Images
Abell PN Catalog (Complete)
All of My PN Images (264)
Ancient PN
Faint Giants Catalog (Complete)
Sharpless Catalog (200/313)

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8817624
PixInsight job	I74TL7E9L4TE4XZXWK6Z38OLGG3L1JFM
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	08h54m12s.61
RA (top/left)	08h57m29s.20
RA (top/right)	08h51m02s.60
RA (bottom/right)	08h50m56s.87
RA (bottom/left)	08h57m22s.66

Dec (center)	+08°53′59″.2
Dec (top/left)	+09°25′51″.2
Dec (top/right)	+09°27′59″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+08°22′12″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+08°19′56″.6

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Abell 31

Abell 31

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

E

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Abell 31

Abell 31

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

E

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

Delete this revision?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information