Page created Feb 10, 2021
Last modified Apr 14, 2022
This is the start of a catalog of planetary nebulae. Eventually, it will become a series of pages showing many of the hundreds of planetary nebulae currently known; but for now it is simply a place to put entries for prominent planetary nebulae, such as those in the NGC/IC catalogs, and others that happen to be featured in one of the Pictures of the Week for various space and terrestrial telescopes. Once it contains a fairly large number of objects, it will be organized as time permits.
EGB-6
A magnitude ? planetary nebula in Leo (RA 09 52 59.0, Dec +13 44 35)
Physical Information: An extremely faint planetary nebula, only visible by using filters to enhance wavelengths emitted by the gas in the nebula, and as a result, not discovered until 1978, despite its spectacular appearance in optimized images.
Above, a 30 arcmin wide SDSS image centered on EGB-6 shows no sign of the planetary nebula
Below, the same region grossly enhanced barely shows the nebula
Below, a 24-hour (3 x 8 hrs) exposure of the same region optimized for nebula emissions
(Image Credit & © Adam Block, Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, Arizona; used by permission)
Below, a NOIRLab image of the same region (Image Credit KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA)
(Image Processing T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (all NSF/NOIRLab))
Below, a 17.5 arcmin wide image of the planetary nebula (Image Credit as above)
M1-63 (= PN VV 209)
A magnitude 14.1 planetary nebula in Scutum (RA 18 51 31.0, Dec -13 10 37)
Physical Information: A bipolar planetary nebula, created by the ejection of material by a red giant before collapsing to become a white dwarf. In this case, the central object is a binary star. The relative motion of the stars causes the gas ejected by the dying star to be preferentially ejected from the poles of the system's orbital motion, whence the "bipolar" structure. The object is thought to be about 32 thouand light years away, in which case its apparent size of about ? arcmin (from the images below) would make the nebula about ? light years across.
Above, a 12 arcmin wide PanSTARRS image centered on M1-63 (red crosshairs highlight the nebula)
Below, a 1.5 arcmin wide PanSTARRS image of the nebula
Below, a 0.22 by 0.3 arcmin wide image of the nebula (Image Credit ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Stanghellini)
ESO 455-10 (= Th 3-55)
A magnitude ? planetary nebula in Scorpius (RA 17 30 58.8, Dec -31 01 06)
Physical Information: (to be added)
ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Stanghellini
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