This object is a tiny planetary nebula located 4200 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus at a declination of +61 degrees. The nebula spans only 22 arc-seconds in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 0.5 light years.
This nebula has 3 distinct regions:
1) A dim 16th magnitude central star, white in color.
2) The bright elliptical inner shell, shaped like an American football, indicating some bi-polar behavior. This shell appears slightly bluer than the outer shell.
3) The circular outer shell with a diameter of 1 light year.
Besides these 3 regions, there is additional structure that is very subtle but visible in the full resolution view. There are what appears to be small reddish hydrogen "butterfly wings" on either side of the core. Also, at each end of the "football", ansae slightly extend out past the outer shell. These are very faint in my image but are seen more clearly in the Hubble image.
It is interesting to me how the 3 regions above appear almost identically, but on a smaller scale, to the PN
NGC 6891 which I posted a few days ago.
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