NGC 1501 (2012)

Not as striking as others, this planetary nebula is NGC 1501. Before high powered telescopes, these looked a lot like fuzzy planets but astronomers knew they couldn’t be because they didn’t move like a planet would. Planetary nebula have nothing to do with planets other than that.

Data used:
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f469n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f656n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f658n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f673n_wf_drz

Copyright information:
Hubble data is public domain, but I put a lot of work into combining it into beautiful color images. The minimal credit line should read: NASA / ESA / J. Schmidt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.