This image captures a planetary nebula located 3400 light years away in the constellation of Scutum at a declination of -9 degrees. This PN spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view. It has a fairly common PN diameter of 2 light years. The blue progenitor star is seen at the center.
This PN is has a much higher OIII content than HII, leading to the cyan color.
I love the structure of this PN. It reminds me of
M97 in color and texture, particularly the two subtle void areas in the central region:
This object has something that M97 does not - a strong rim around the outer region, similar to
Abell 39:
It is hard to get a good handle on the exact 3-dimensional shape of this PN - it is complex. The sphere appears to be have breakthrough at the 2 o’clock position, where perhaps an additional jet (off of the typical bi-polar axis) is sending out a stream of gas.
In the mouseover closeup, note the small PN Kohoutek 4-8 (PK 25-4.1).
Comments