This
Astrobin Debut Object is a tiny dim planetary nebula located 25,000 light years away in the constellation of Aquila at a declination of +8 degrees. It is a magnitude 15 PN. The bright portion spans 8 arc-seconds in our apparent view (a bit larger than the planet Mercury) while the entire PN length is about 25 arc-minutes (the current size of Venus). This corresponds to a diameter of about 1 light year.
This is a bi-polar PN with both lobes blown out. Like many PN, the outer rim is stronger in HII while the inner section is stronger in OIII. The progenitor star is too dim to be seen from this distance.
It is not a surprise that this PN is not spectacular. Minkowski planetary nebulae are small, challenging, and difficult to see visually without the use of OIII or HII filters. Some of them are very interesting, while many are stellar-like or otherwise not as interesting. My Astrobin Minkowski Collection is
here. These PNs were discovered by German-American astronomer Dr. Rudolph Minkowski. His work at Mt. Wilson used up to 100 inch scopes to more than double the number of planetary nebulae known at the time. The Minkowski PN catalog was extracted from 3 papers he published in the 1940s. Although he didn’t number the objects and formally assemble them as a catalog, we now refer to the objects of the three papers by the designators M 1-xx, M 2-xx, and M 3-xx. A fourth catalog (M4-xx) was later added from his observations, for a total of 207 PN. As is usual in these situations, objects in later catalogues (this PN is from the 4th catalogue) are smaller and dimmer.
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