M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

About this Image

No, this isn't a Hubble shot. But this image was acquired and processed just like the gorgeous Hubble telescope images that we've come to love. To accomplish this, the image was taken through specialized, narrowband emission line filters. This information was then "mapped" to the traditional red, green, and blue channels of an RGB image. The green portions of the image represent Hydrogen-alpha ionized gases. Most notably, these gases extend well outside the Dumbbell itself to form a halo around the outskirts, something that requires very long exposure times to capture in an amateur image. The color blue represents doubly ionized Oxygen gases, and as you'd expect from a planetary nebula, the heaviest concentration of these gases are around the core area itself. Finally, red represents singly ionized Sulfur gases. While the stars glow heavily in the sulfur wavelength, there is only a light concentration of it in the nebula, mostly throughout the brighter portions.

Such images, while obviously beautiful, have a real scientific purpose. Because the colors are mapped specifically to certain gases, it's easy to understand the concentrations of ionizations and how (where) they interact with each other.