M27 (Gary Imm) - AstroBin

M27

This object is a planetary nebula located 1200 light years away in the constellation of Vulpecula at a declination of +23 degrees. This nebula spans 15 arc-minutes to the fainter reaches of the nebula, which corresponds to an actual width of 5 light years.

The naming of this planetary nebula goes back to the English astronomer John Herschel, who described M27 as a “nebula shaped like a dumb-bell, with the elliptic outline completed by a feeble nebulous light”. Its alternate name is the Apple Core Nebula. Like the dumbbell, the apple core appears when you focus on only the brightest central regions of this object (the portion visible through the eyepiece).

As with all planetary nebulae, this object consists of gas that has been ejected and ionized by the hot central star. This 14th magnitude white dwarf star, visible at the center of the image, is thought to be larger than any other known white dwarf in our sky.

What is the exact nebula structure here, and how did it form? It is always hard to interpret a 3D structure when we only have one perspective of it from earth. I have read a number of explanations in papers and web articles but none feel very satisfying. Certainly there seems to be a strong bi-polar influence, with opposite outflows at 5 and 11 o’clock, highlighted by the red Ha fans. But the strongest extent of bi-polar flow, as indicated by the mid-region bubble deformation, seems to be at 2 and 8 o’clock, mainly in OIII. It seems possible that a binary star system is at work here, where one of the stars ejects the mass thrown off by the other while changing orientation over time.

Regardless of its origin, this nebula is a beautiful and intricate object.

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Status	Advanced failed
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Astrometry.net job	3845765
PixInsight job	9ROC2DXGSATJN0D12HJ7T1VH2YR6GK6Z
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	PLATE_SOLVING_IMAGE

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