Sh2-68 (Jochen Maes)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Serpens (Ser)

Sh2-68

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=blci0n6q5og6p5141z8ooxkgobo3h9

Sh2-68

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=blci0n6q5og6p5141z8ooxkgobo3h9

Sh2-68 is a planetary nebula in the Serpens constellation, estimated to be around 980 light years from earth (planetary nebulae are extremely difficult to perform distance measurements on, let alone accurate ones). It's sometimes refered to as "The flaming skull" nebula. Usually, I think these names are quite far-fetched; with this one I can sort of see it though.

At first sight, this is your typical planetary nebula. Meaning a low to intermediate mass star came to the end of its life and the colourful gas we see is what used to make up the outer shell of said star. However, the "tail" of gas moving away (towards the right of the frame) is somewhat unusual. So what's going on there?

The central star within the nebula is moving through space at a fairly high speed. Additionally, the area of space it's in contains a fair bit of gas/dust of its own. As a result, the material being expelled by the star is meeting some resistance as it collides with the already present gas (and is being slowed down if you will), while the star itself continues on its merry way. Over a long period of time, the distance between the star and the expelled gas becomes great enough to be perceived as a "tail".

Image acquisition details:

50x1800" HA
23x1800" OIII
15x1200" Luminance
12x900" Red
12x900" Green
12x900" Blue

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

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Star trails
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Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
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Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6255094
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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