NGC 6888 (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg) · Contains: Crescent Nebula · NGC 6888 · Sh2-105

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NGC 6888

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NGC 6888

This object, about 5000 light years away in the Cygnus constellation, is a beautiful nebula consisting of an expanding shell of gas about 25 light-years across. The shell is being blown out by winds from its central, bright, massive star. For a time I thought that this object was a planetary nebula, and you will sometimes see it referenced as such. But the central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star, meaning that it suffers a high rate of mass loss, and so the resulting Wolf-Rayet nebula had a different formation process than it would have had as a planetary nebula.

The progenitor star is designated WR136 and is the bright star at the center of the nebula. The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. The nebula's complex structures are the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in earlier phases.

This image is bi-color, using light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the wind-blown nebula and then adding RGB stars. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that is predominantly on the outside of the nebula, while the hydrogen atoms produce the reddish hue that is predominantly on the inside.

My favorite parts of this object are the billowing arcs of oxygen gas fronts seen at both the top and bottom of the nebula. At the top they look like a wispy, spiffy cap, while at the bottom they look like puffy mammatus clouds.

Texas Astronomy
Fine Art Astrophotography
Narrowband imaging
Images from the EdgeHD Series
Sharpless2 Objects
ASI 6200 MM Pro
Cloudy Nights
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers

PN Imposters

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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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3973604
PixInsight job	MN06QV9EOBM4SCZC5RKI7F9HCPDQPOGO
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	20h12m09s.910
RA (top/left)	20h13m54s.172
RA (top/right)	20h10m26s.986
RA (bottom/right)	20h10m24s.689
RA (bottom/left)	20h13m50s.505

Dec (center)	+38°20′37″.16
Dec (top/left)	+38°33′52″.79
Dec (top/right)	+38°34′44″.50
Dec (bottom/right)	+38°07′15″.83
Dec (bottom/left)	+38°06′24″.71

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