From a NASA APOD:
The gorgeous, gaseous shroud of a dying sunlike star, planetary nebula Abell 36 lies a mere 800 light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. At that distance it spans over 1.5 light-years in this sharp telescopic view. Shrugging off its outer layers, the nebula's central star is contracting and becoming hotter, evolving towards a final white dwarf phase. In fact, in Abell 36, the central star is estimated to have a surface temperature of over 73,000 K, compared to the Sun's present 6,000 K temperature. As a result, the intensely hot star is much brighter in ultraviolet light, compared to its visual appearance here. The invisible ultraviolet light ionizes hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the nebula and ultimately powers the beautiful visible light glow.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140530.htmlGENERAL NOTE ON ABELL (and other) PLANETARY NEBULA>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From Wikipedia:
The Abell Catalog of Planetary Nebulae was created in 1966 by George O. Abell and was composed of 86 entries thought to be planetary nebulae that were collected from discoveries, about half by Albert George Wilson and the rest by Abell, Robert George Harrington, and Rudolph Minkowski. All were discovered before August 1955 as part of the National Geographic Society – Palomar Observatory Sky Survey on photographic plates created with the 48-inch (1.2 m) Samuel Oschin telescope at Mount Palomar. Four were later rejected as not being planetaries: Abell 11 (reflection nebula), Abell 32 (red plate flaw), Abell 76 (ring galaxy PGC 85185), and Abell 85 (supernova remnant CTB 1 and noted as possibly such in Abell's 1966 paper). Another three were also not included in the Strasbourg-ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (SEC): Abell 9, Abell 17 (red plate flaw), and Abell 64. Planetaries on the list are best viewed with a large aperture telescope (e.g. 18-inch (0.46 m)) and an OIII filter.
It turns out to my surprise most of these are visible with my Stellarvue 130mm (5-inch) SVX.
Bottom line there are 79 imagable Abell Nebula of which I have imaged 47 (half-way point Feb 6 2012).
This is my collection:
Planetary Nebula (Abell)These are sorted by number and behind the Abell's are other miscellaneous PNs that I have imaged... I have a list of the 100 brightest.
These are some useful Abell relevant sites:
Color and IMHO Best Filter InformationImages by Season and More Filter information in German
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