PN G321.6+02.2 or GVMP 1 Rendered in HoxOTA:……………….CDK17
Camera:………….SBIG STXL11002 with AOX and FW8G (0.63 arcsec/px)
Observatory:…. Heaven’s Mirror, Chile
EXPOSURES:
…H.….24 x 1800
…O.….18 x 1800
Total exposure 21 hours
Data acquired in 2020
Image Width: ~41 arc-minutes
Processed by Alex Woronow (2022) using PixInsight, SW
- Pixel resolution on the target: 1 Pixel = 600 Trillion Kilometers!
Another planetary nebula—actually two planetary nebulae! The main feature is PN G321.6+02.2, sometimes referred to as GVMP 1, the initial of the four astronomers who published an article about it in 1997. It does appear in Pavla Maršálková 1974 catalog of 698 emission nebulae located along the galactic equator as entry 252. At the right is another very distant planetary nebula, PN321+01.0, which is vaguely reminiscent of the Helix Nebula. (The “PN” stands for “Planetary Nebula.” Sometimes the more general “PK” is used for the designations.) The popular name for this nebula (which is not all that popular, given the paucity of times it has been imaged) is the “Mask Nebula.” If insufficient exposures are acquired, or the processing is minimal, the central regions may appear black and look like a sleeping mask, presumably.
GVMP 1 is a bipolar nebula, meaning that the star that produced the planetary ejected it in two opposite directions. The source star is not visible but lies at the pinch-point between the two lobes. The best article I have found, and used in the above description, is by M. Diodati:
https://medium.com/amazing-science/cvmp-1-609eae560777.
This image has Ha and OIII images only. It has been mapped through “true-color” to RGB space and then photometrically color calibrated. At the scale noted above, the most delicate details in this image boggle the mind in their physical size.
Alex Woronow
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