Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Puppis (Pup)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2440
Albino Butterfly Nebula (NGC2440), DoubleStarPhotography
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Albino Butterfly Nebula (NGC2440)

Albino Butterfly Nebula (NGC2440), DoubleStarPhotography
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Albino Butterfly Nebula (NGC2440)

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Description

NGC 2440, also known as the Albino Butterfly nebula,  is an very small (~10 arc minutes) but bright planetary nebula.

The central star of NGC 2440, HD 62166, is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature near 200,000 degrees Celsius. The complex structure of the surrounding nebula suggests to some astronomers that there have been periodic oppositely directed outflows from the central star, somewhat similar to that in NGC2346 (The Butterfly Nebula),  but in the case of NGC 2440 these outflows have been episodic, and in different directions during each episode.  NGC 2440 lies about 4,000 light-years from Earth in thedirection of the constellation Puppis.  It was discovered by William Herschel on March 4, 1790.

This image was taken under less than ideal conditions unfortunately, but wanted to post becasue I found it to be such an interesting object.  It's extremely small for my 140MM refractor,  and I had orginally planned on shooting with a 4x barlow to better scale the object but the conditions this night wouldn't permit that level of magnification,  so I had to settle for shooting with a 2x barlow.  The core of the nebula was brighter then expected,  and required special processng to balance with the fainter surrounding lobes of the nebula.

I'll look to revisit this object again in the future.....either with more aperture, steadier skies, or ideally both! :-)

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