Bright Planetary Nebula
NGC 7027 from Hubble
It is one of the
brightest planetary nebulae on the sky -- what should it be named? First
discovered in 1878, nebula NGC 7027 can be seen toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) with a standard backyard telescope.
Partly because it
appears there as only an indistinct spot, it is rarely referred to with a
moniker. When imaged with the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, however, great details are revealed.
Studying Hubble images
of NGC 7027 have led to the understanding that it is a planetary nebula that began expanding about 600 years ago, and that the cloud of gas and dust is unusually massive as it
appears to contain about three times the mass of our Sun.
Pictured below in assigned colors, the resolved, layered, and dust-laced
features of NGC 7027 might remind sky enthusiasts of a familiar icon that could be the basis for
an informal name.
Please feel free
to make suggestions -- some suggestions are being recorded,
for example, in an online APOD discussion forum.
