Water Lily Nebula (2013)

It looks like someone plucked a few of the petals off, but I can see why this was named the water lily. This is another in the preplanetary (or protoplanetary) nebula category.

Slight rant warning:
I call them preplanetary because protoplanetary is too easily confused with protoplanetary disks which have nothing to do with protoplanetary nebulas. I’ll be happy on the day astronomers finally do away with the “planetary” part of the name entirely. I have to have hope that someday that will happen for the sake of reason and scientists like reason. ...Right?

I probably should have removed the diffraction spikes since the two exposures make them kind of awkward. I might do that later.

Red: hst_08210_01_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci
Green: pseudo
Blue: hst_06565_03_wfpc2_f606w_pc_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.