Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Vela (Vel)  ·  Contains:  Eight-burst planetary  ·  NGC 3132  ·  PK272+12.1
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Eight Burst Nebula, Geoff
Powered byPixInsight

Eight Burst Nebula

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

NGC 3132 is also known as the Southern Ring Nebula or, more commonly, as the Eight-Burst Nebula because of its figure-8 appearance through small telescopes. It is a very bright, asymmetric planetary nebula of approximately 0.4 light years across and is about 2,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela. It is receding from us at 49 kilometers per second.

This expanding cloud of gas is one of the nearest known planetary nebulae. The gases expand away from the central star at a speed of about 14.4 kilometers per second. Interestingly, neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.

The colour mapping is chosen to mimic RGB:

Ha+25% Sii -->Red

OIII-->Green

OIII +25% Ha -->Blue

Comments

Revisions

  • Eight Burst Nebula, Geoff
    Original
  • Final
    Eight Burst Nebula, Geoff
    B

Histogram

Eight Burst Nebula, Geoff