JaFu 1 (2013)

This nebula is named after Jacoby and Fulton who, along with others, were rewarded with the discovery of this tiny planetary nebula buried in the haze of stars known as the loose globular cluster Palomar 6. Finding the few existing planetary nebulas in globular clusters is something like the astronomer’s ultimate game of Where’s Waldo. Congratulations, guys. Anyway, this curious blob (or perhaps the name itself: “What’s a JaFu??”) managed to catch my attention in the archive so I went ahead and processed it.

Obviously, wideband filters barely reveal the little feller at all. The nebula is mainly visible in the F656N (H-alpha) & F502N (OIII) data. I toned the wideband data down quite a bit to tame the various bright stars.

Red: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci + hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci
Green: hst_11308_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: ACS/WFC F502N (jb1w02010_drz)

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.