NGC 1360 (Jochen Maes)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Fornax (For) · Contains: NGC 1360

NGC 1360

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=m2aw1o3j1wleqdfupxvl2vavntpida

NGC 1360

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=m2aw1o3j1wleqdfupxvl2vavntpida

NGC 1360 is a planetary nebula in the Fornax constellation, around 1500 light years from earth.

You're essentially looking at the remnants of a "dead" star that has ejected its shell (the gas cloud you see was once the star's outer layer). Interestingly, this specific planetary nebula looks quite different from what we would expect. Typically, we only see oxygen emissions (the green/blue'ish colour) close to the remnants of our "dead" star because the energy emitted by it is still potent enough to ionize the oxygen (for the sake of simplicity, think of it as the material getting energized and emitting light in the process). As we move further and further away from the remnants of the star, energy emissions become less potent up to the point where there's not enough to ionize the oxygen and we should instead see emissions of less energy demanding elements being dominant (hydrogen for example, resulting in a red'ish colour). That's clearly not the case here. So why is that?

The answer lies with the big bright object you see right at the center of the nebula. This is not a foreground star, but one that's actually in the nebula itself. On top of that, it's a quite massive and very energetic star. Its energy emissions alone basically overrule everything I just explained and causes oxygen to be ionized all throughout the structure, resulting in the somewhat different aesthetics.

Image acquisition details:

19x1800" OIII
21x1200" Luminance
20x900" Red
20x900" Green
20x900" Blue

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Extremely wide field
Star trails
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Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
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Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6635062
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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NGC 1360

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