This
Astrobin Debut Object is a planetary nebula located 15,000 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus at a declination of +58 degrees. It is a magnitude 14 PN which spans 30 arc-seconds in our apparent view. This corresponds to the typical PN diameter of 2 light years.
I have imaged 250 PNe so far but none look anything like this one. Its structure is hard to understand. My best guess is that it is primarily bi-polar with the axis going from left to right. The right lobe is extended and faint as if it has been blown out. But what about the “wings” that extend up and down, and the bright white seemingly rectangular white rim? The white section of a PN is typically related to the torus, but I have never seen an angular one. Maybe this is a multi-polar PN, with a binary central star that is changing axis orientation with time?
Whatever the case, it should be called the Texas PN, since it looks like the shape of my state to me.
This PN was discovered by the astronomer Dr. Rudolph Minkowski. His work at Mt. Wilson with 100 inch scopes more than doubled the number of planetary nebulae known at the time. The
Minkowski PN catalog was extracted from 3 papers he published in the 1940s. Although he didn’t number the objects and formally assemble them as a catalog, we now refer to the objects of the three papers by the designators M 1-xx, M 2-xx, and M 3-xx. A fourth catalog (M4-xx) was later added from his observations, for a total of 207 PN.
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