This is NGC 7293, otherwise known as the Helix Nebula in the constellation Aquarius. Sometimes it is informally labeled as the "Eye of God" or the "Eye of Sauron" in popular culture and is the closest bright nebula to our own solar system at a distance of 655 light years.

The Helix Nebula is the result of the central star undergoing a stage near the end of its life when it blows off its outer layers into space, forming what is called a "Planetary Nebula" since in crude early telescopes, these objects looked like disks...similar to planets.

Stars spend most of their lives converting hydrogen into helium...and when the hydrogen is almost expended, the star begins burning its helium to generate carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Once the helium runs out, the star's nuclear furnace dies, blowing off its outer layers into space to be incorporated into future generations of stars and planets. This is where the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere and the carbon in our blood comes from. In approximately another five billion years, our own Sun will undergo a similar process and the hot expanding outer layers of material created during its lifetime will engulf the inner planets, including the Earth. What is left of the central star becomes a "white dwarf", radiating prodigeous levels of ultraviolet light...causing the expanding cloud to glow. Here, hydrogen is glowing predominately red and oxygen is glowing with the beautiful cyan color in the central region of the nebula.

The Helix Nebula was the first planetary nebula found to contain "cometary knots", many of which can be seen in this image as small knots of nebulosity with tails radiating away from the central star. Each one of these is roughly the size of our entire solar system.

This image consists of layers of data captured over three nights...24 ten-minute exposures in luminance (the brightness components) and 60 minutes in each of the primary colors red, green and blue. This target is not an easy one from South Carolina since from our latitude, it never rises much higher than 30 degrees over the southern horizon...thus it appears through a very thick layer of Earth's atmosphere.