Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Amateur Astronomer Discovers Blue-Raspberry-Shaped Planetary Nebula

July 26, 2011 - Popular Science
Combing through the night sky and looking for possible planetary nebulae is tough, tedious work. NASA actually works with several amateur astronomy groups to examine the findings from its Kepler space observatory, so sometimes, the big discoveries are made by amateurs--including this one, the newest known planetary nebula, named Kronberger 61.

This image, provided by the Gemini Observatory, shows the "ionized shell of expelled gas," colored blue due to the double-ionization of the oxygen. If you look closely, you can see the star at the center of the system--it's the bright bluish dot near the center of the blue-raspberry-like shell.
...