Necklace Nebula (2013)

The necklace nebula is weird. Sure, it glows in all the usual colors, but the little red bits are arranged perfectly in a circle around the central stars (visible as a single star) and then there are the two other red bits at considerable distance from the rest of the nebula at the upper left and lower right. I brightened those distant ones a little to make them easier to see. To understand these baffling features, I recommend reading this article because the authors definitely know more than I do.

Red: hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f814w_sci + hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f658n_sci
Green: hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f555w_sci + hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f656n_sci
Blue: hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f438w_sci + hst_12675_01_wfc3_uvis_f502n_sci

North is up.

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.