Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Aquila (Aql)  ·  Contains:  PK040-00.1
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Abell 53 #1, Molly Wakeling
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Abell 53 #1

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Abell 53 #1, Molly Wakeling
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Abell 53 #1

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Description

This is a little planetary nebula in the constellation Aquila, which is a hard-to-spot constellation right along the Milky Way above the more-familiar Sagittarius. Located about 6,300 lightyears away, this magnitude 14 nebula is about 1 lightyear across. This sounds dim, but because of its small apparent size on the sky (30 arcseconds -- smaller than the width of a sewing needle held at arm's length!), it pops out relatively easily from the background on a camera -- I imagine that with a nebula-boost filter, it could be spotted in something like a 10" or bigger Dob under decent sky conditions.

Anyway, planetary nebulae are the remnants of dying main-sequence stars -- stars roughly the size of our own that can no longer hold onto their outer layers of gas, which are being puffed out into space. Our own Sun will eventually become a planetary nebula (in about 5 billion years, give or take), and might be a lovely little sight for someone else on some other distant planet.

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Abell 53 #1, Molly Wakeling

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