Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star (Kevin Morefield)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Hercules (Her) · Contains: PK047+42.1

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Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

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Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

For billions of years an intermediate mass star toils away in obscurity. Then its outer atmosphere depletes exposing the core. Our ordinary star new enters a stage of flowering as we see here, bringing it to our attention - but only for a few 10s of thousands of years. As the nebulosity expands and fades the now white dwarf star soldiers on yet more billions of years.

While March is often called Galaxy season due to the lack of grand nebulae in the northern sky, when the Moon is up I think of it as "Abell" season since Planetaries are about the only narrowband objects to shoot.

Abell 39 is nearly a perfect sphere, though Wikipedia notes "the eastern limb of the nebula is 50% more luminous than the western limb. Additionally, irregularities in the surface brightness are seen across the face of the shell. The source of the east–west asymmetry is not known but it could be related to the offset of the central star.

There are some variations in brightness on the surface of the sphere - just enough to give a hint of texture.

I've left this an an uncropped wide-field to give the feeling of loneliness, and maybe foreshadowing, as most of the stars in view will have a somewhat similar end.

Abell Planetary Nebula

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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	4377830
PixInsight job	GE98KJW0OP0XGN9LDD85D52G3NS6ZSBB
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	16h27m32s.905
RA (top/left)	16h25m26s.758
RA (top/right)	16h27m44s.796
RA (bottom/right)	16h29m38s.718
RA (bottom/left)	16h27m20s.883

Dec (center)	+27°54′05″.84
Dec (top/left)	+28°02′44″.81
Dec (top/right)	+27°25′03″.42
Dec (bottom/right)	+27°45′23″.10
Dec (bottom/left)	+28°23′07″.80

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Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

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Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

Abell 39 | 15 Minutes of Fame for an Ordinary Star

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