This magnitude 13.3 planetary nebula is located 5400 light years away in the constellation of Pegasus at a declination of +13 degrees. This object is also know as
Minkowski 1-19. It has an apparent diameter of less than 2 minutes, which corresponds to the typical PNe diameter of 2 light years.
The blue central star is one of the most distinct that I have seen in a planetary nebula.
I love PNe which have these OIII-dominated filamentary structures. I have found numerous PNe like this, all of which I have included in my
Filamentary PNe Collection. I am surprised that these have not been studied as a group.
It is interesting to speculate on how such a filamentary structure is formed. One explanation is from a 1999 paper on NGC 7094 by T. Rauch:
“The most likely explanation for the instabilities might be that the old, slow AGB wind matter is swept up to a thin shell by the fast central star wind. While the invisible inner, high-pressure bubble is expanding due to the released energy of the stellar wind, instabilities in the dense, moving shell may appear, effective enough to produce filament-like surface structures of the shell matter. As these filaments form, the intrafilament region can expand out ahead of the filaments, giving rise to a somewhat “lumpy” outer edge on the shell.”
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