Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Sagitta (Sge)  ·  Contains:  PK060-07.1
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He 1-5, Gary Imm
He 1-5, Gary Imm

He 1-5

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He 1-5, Gary Imm
He 1-5, Gary Imm

He 1-5

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object Is a protoplanetary nebula located 10000 light years away in the constellation of Sagitta at a declination of +20 degrees.  This PN spans 30 arc-seconds in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 2 light years.

He-1 was discovered by Karl Henize in 1961 and is also designated as PN 060.3–07.3.  It is dominated by HII signal. 

There is no progenitor star visible at the center of the nebula, only some dark meandering void areas.  There is a bright star within the nebula, offset to the left, but I believe that this is simply a superimposed star. 

The only other image of this PN that I have seen, on SIMBAD, shows a bright central star.  This was puzzling, until I read a 2008 paper on this PN which said that “the central star of this nebula is a unique object, the variable star FG Sge that rapidly evolves as a result of the last helium flash.“  So this is one of those few DSOs which appears to change its nature on a very short time scale.

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