Abell 41 (PK9.6+10.5) is an almost never imaged planetary nebula in Ophiuchus. This is the first image on Astrobin. Abell 41 is about the smallest of the Abell PNs, measuring only 0.25 arc minutes and has a magnitude listed at 15.6. It is however, much brighter than this for RGB and NB imaging. A fine version of it shows on the RGB image, just a bit smaller than the Ha enhanced version presented here. the Oiii is much weaker than the Ha. It has a very bipolar football shape.
Abell 41 is the subject of some extensive research dealing with binary star PNs. Its progenitor star, according to this research, is a binary and is clearly visible in the center.
Here is a paper on that research:
Abell 41: nebular shaping by a binary central star?
https://www.academia.edu/12036945/Abell_41_nebular_shaping_by_a_binary_central_starUsing high-resolution longslit spectroscopy and deep imaging, a spatio-kinematicalmodel of A 41 has been developed which clearly shows that the nebula is aligned withthe binary central system exactly as predicted by current theories of PN shaping by bi-nary CSPN. This is only the second nebula to have this link observationally constrained(after A 63, Mitchell et al. 2007). The kinematical data con?rm A 41 exhibits a waisted,bipolar structure, with some small deviations from perfect axisymmetry. The presenceof an equatorial ring is also con?rmed, adding further weight to the link between ringstructures and central binary stars as commented on by Miszalski et al. (2009, 2010) and L´opez et al. (2010)
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