27
Jul
2023
The Dumbbell nebula is a bright planetary nebula located in the direction of the Vulpecula constellation around 1360 light years from earth. At its center lays a dying star, which has been ejecting a shell of hot gas into space for approximately 48'000 years. In my narrowband photo, hydrogen gas is colored red, oxygen gas blue and sulfur green.
The star responsible for the nebula, is a very hot, blueish subdwarf star, emitting highly energetic radiation mostly in the non visible part of the light spectrum. The radiated energy is being absorbed by the surrounding gas, which causes the gases to ionize and glow in a very specific color (hence why narrowband filters can be used to make certain chemical elements visible).
The blueish tint in its center is due to the large amounts of oxygen present there. It appears there are hydrogen jets coming out from the left over dwarf star (visible as red “jets” coming out from the center).
The nebula itself is made up of different shock-wave fronts, which can easily be seen as different “shells” travelling through the nebula. These are expanding at a rate of up to 40-80km/s!
The core of the nebula resolves with quite a lot of detail in this re-processing of data from 2022!