A group created on 09/07/2021, owned by Gary Imm, categorized as Specific to an astrophotography target.

Minkowski Planetary Nebulae

Minkowski planetary nebulae are small, challenging, and difficult to see visually without the use of OIII or HII filters. Some of them are very interesting, while many are stellar-like or otherwise not as interesting. These PNs were discovered by German-American astronomer Dr. Rudolph Minkowski. His work at Mt. Wilson used up to 100 inch scopes to more than double the number of planetary nebulae known at the time. The Minkowski PN catalog was extracted from 3 papers he published in the 1940s. Although he didn’t number the objects and formally assemble them as a catalog, we now refer to the objects of the three papers by the designators M 1-xx, M 2-xx, and M 3-xx. A fourth catalog (M4-xx) was later added from his observations, for a total of 207 PN.

The PN below can be sorted by Minkowski number, using the menu above. When posting an image, in the image tag, use the format "MIN=XYY" where XYY is the Minkowski designation. For example, the tag for Minkowski 1-79 is MIN=179.