Title: Helix Nebula in Aquarius
Description:
Caldwell 63 is right in our cosmic neighborhood — only about 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Also cataloged as NGC 7293, Caldwell 63 is commonly called the Helix Nebula.
It is a planetary nebula of gigantic proportions, with its bright ring stretching across nearly 3 light-years and dimmer, outer features extending even farther. Planetary nebulae like this one have no actual connection to planets but are called that because many of them have disk-like shapes that look like planets when viewed through small telescopes.
They are produced as a medium-mass star dies and sloughs off its outer gaseous layers. These layers are expelled into space at astonishing speeds and glow from the energy given off by the dying star. The Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth, giving even astrophotography hobbiests like myself a detailed look at this type of stellar demise.
The Helix Nebula was nicknamed the "Eye of God", or "God’s Eye" nebula because it appears like a giant eye in space. The nickname started appearing after the release of the image taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope in November 2002. The infrared image taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, showing the eye in different colours, followed in 2007. JWST blew us all away with a recent IR image. WOW!
This photo consists of 156 images taken from August 2022 though August 2023. I may add more depending upon available nights.
Personally, I like the eyebrow.
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