Photo By James Graham

Abell 39 is a planetary nebula formed by the ejected outer layers of a sun-like star collapsing into a white dwarf. It sits 7000 light years distant in the constellation of Hercules.

Messier 78 Reflecting Orion

I couldn’t help myself on such a clear night. I revisited the Lagoon Nebula, Trifid Nebula, and M22 cluster, but I checked out the Saturn Nebula, which is smaller than I expected.

Andromeda, Our Sister 

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula : Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably as part of a binary star system. Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center, have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebulas walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the above representative-color picture by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer . Its distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years. via NASA

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This image shows what it might look like standing on the surface of a planet orbiting a brown dwarf star. An alien moon can also be seen in the sky. The brown dwarf gives off such feeble visible light it is difficult to see any of the landscape except for the reflection in the water.

credit: Jeff Bryant