Astronomical pictures and videos |
An image of NGC 6543, the Cat's Eye Nebula, obtained at the 2.6m Nordic Optical Telescope on summer 2002. Also several selected as Astronomy Picture of the Day more than once. | |
Details of the inner regions of the nebula in the previous picture, NGC 6543, at the high resolution provided by the ACS camera on board of the Hubble Space Telescope (images from the HST archive). Picture is several format at the Hubblesite. | |
The very old planetary nebula Sharpless 2-200 in Ha+[NII]. For an image of the extended emission structure around this nebula and other ones, see our PNe haloes database. | |
The bipolar planetary nebula NGC 6302. This is an unpublished, deep Ha+[NII] image obtained on 1991 with Hugo Schwarz at the 3.6m ESO telescope. In the collimated outflows of this class of objects, gas is expanding at a velocity one order of magnitude larger than in more spherical planetary nebulae. In the specific case of NGC 6302, expansion velocities larger than 160 km/s have been measured. This nebula also contains one of the hottest stars in the Galaxy. | |
The old bipolar planetary nebula MRSL 252. This [NII] image was obtained at the 3.5m NTT, and the nebula rescued from a catalogue of Galactic HII regions and recognised to be an evolved planetary nebula. It is also one of the largest planetary nebulae known, with a size of 4 parsec and extremely high helium and nitrogen abundances. See Corradi et al. (1997) for more details. | |
K 4-47, a highly collimated outflow from a dying sun. Red is [NII] emission, green is [OIII]. The nebula seems to be composed of two bullets of gas ejected with a velocity of 150 km/s (from Corradi et al. 2000 ). | |
NGC 6337 is a bipolar nebula seen almost pole-on. It contains a close binary central star, as typical of PNe with prominent equatorial rings. | |
An image of NGC 6853, the Dumbell nebula, obtained at the 2.6m Nordic Optical Telescope by Thomas Augusteijn on autumn 2002 with the new mosaic camera MOSCA. The picture is a combination of B (blue), V (green), and R (red) broad-band images. | |
The same nebula as above, in a drawing from 1850 by Padre Angelo Secchi! | |
The Necklace nebula, recently discovered by the IPHAS Halpha survey of the Northern Galactic plane. The study of this unique nebula and its binary central stars is presented in Corradi et al. (2011) | |
M 2-9, the butterfly nebula, has several remarkable properties, among which stands out its rotating pattern in the inner bipolar lobes, which resembles that of a terrestrial lighthouse. For more details, see the corresponding IAC press release and its related illustrative video or the full discussion in Corradi et al. (2010). |
[NII] HST image of He 2-104. We show here the
whole nebula with the two nested sets of bipolar lobes and the polar
jets. This picture is from HST Press Release STScI-PRC99-32
of August 24, 1999, where other images can be found. Also in the Astronomy
Picture of the Day of August 31, 1999. Our recent study (Corradi, Livio, Balick, Munari A& Schwarz 2001, ApJ 553, 211) has demostrated that all the three different outflows from the central binary system, namely the inner and outer lobes, and the polar jets, have been ejected at the same time. This is a puzzling result, as theories do not predict the formation of simultaneous, coeval outflows with different degress of collimation. |
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Details of the inner lobes of He 2-104, after drizzling dithered [NII] HST images. | |
Animation of two [NII] HST images of He 2-147 taken in 2001 and 2004 showing its expansion. Here we have a Mira with a white dwarf companion which is very slowly retracing from a long thermonuclear outburst, as the the Mira's continuum is only now marginally visible in red spectra at >600 nm, while it was not visibile at all 40 yr ago because of the veiling continuum by the circumstellar ionized material. The nebula is a a knotty annulus of ionized gas inclined to the plane of sky, expanding with a velocity of 90 km/s and with an age of some 200 years for a distance of 2.9 kpc (Santander-Garcia et al. 2007). When the object was discovered in the 60's, the WD was already in outburst so it is not clear when the later started. There is one symbiotic nova, AG Peg, which outburst is known to have lasted at least 130 years. If the outbursts of the two objects are similar, that of He 2-147 must have begun much earlier than 130 yr ago, and possibly be the ultimate casue of the ejection of the observed ring nebula. | |
Page with an artistic animation (mpeg) of a symbiotic system and snapshot frames of the video (tif). |
We have obtained Halpa+[NII] images of the remnant of Nova Persei 1901 (GK Per) every year since 2004 mainly at the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma. Together with archival images from various telescopes, they allowed us to make this (real) video of the expansion of the outflow. Results will be published soon on the Astrophysical Journal. | |
M 33, the Triangulum galaxy. This is a mosaic of images that I have taken in 1998 together with Laura Magrini, Antonio Mampaso & Mario Perinotto with the Wide Field Camera at the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope. The image is a composition of frames taken in three narrow bands: the green colour represents the galaxian emission in a filter centred on the [OIII] nebular line at 500.7nm, red is the H-alpha hydrogen emission at 656.3nm, while blue is mainly stellar light taken through a continuum filter centred at 555.0nm (Stromgren Y). The main scientific goal of these observations was to search for planetary nebulae in this nearby galaxy. They are recognised as emission-line objects with generally intense [OIII] and H-alpha lines, negligible continuum emission, and a point-like appearance (1 arcsec corresponds to about 4 pc at the distance of M33). 134 new planetary nebulae were discovered (Magrini et al. 2000, A&A 355, 713). The image is also available at higher resolution (TIF (38 M), PDF (2 M)). |
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