This object is a planetary nebula located 18,000 light years away in the constellation of Perseus at a declination of +43 degrees. This PN spans 0.4 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 2 light years.
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Abell 2 – this object is similar in many ways:
- Diameter of 2 light years
- Central star barely visible
- Round shape
- Primarily comprised of oxygen (cyan color)
- Owl Texture structure
The Owl Texture structure is named after M97 (Owl Nebula) – round, primarily oxygen, and two dark circular voids in the inner region which are likely caused by bi-polar jets from the central star. Typically with this texture, one void is slight darker than the other, the darker void being pointed more towards our line of sight.
Many faint galaxies are visible in the background, highlighted by the galaxy (2MFGC 2191) just above and right of Abell 4. I could not find distance information for these galaxies. My guess is that the larger ones are about 1 billion light years away.
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