*The Ring Nebula*
| Right Ascension | Declination | Distance | Visual Brightness | Apparent Dimension |
| 18 : 53.6 (h:m) | +33 : 02 (deg:m) | 2.3 (kly) | 8.8 (mag) | 1.4x1.0 (arc min) |
What is the Ring Nebula?
Webster's definition:
Planetary Nebula ('pla-n&-"ter-E 'ne-by&-l&)
Function: noun
: a usually compact luminous ring-shaped nebula that is composed of matter which has been ejected from a hot star at its center
The
ring nebula was discovered in 1779 by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix.
Its' central star was discovered in 1800 by Friedrich Von Hahn.
It is a famous nebula in the Northern hemisphere in the summer
sky. It was originally believed to be a spherical shell, and now
it is believed to be a torus (ring) of bright light emitting material
surrounding the central star. It was the second planetarial
nebula discovered after M27, the Dumbel Nebula, 15 years before. The
distance to the Ring Nebula to the earth is still not known and is
currently under investigation.
The central star is 100,000 to 120,000 K. It is thought that the ring nebula was probably once more massive than our Sun and now is cooling down and entering its' white dwarf stage. The size of the central star is approximately the same size as the terrestrial planets. With an excellent, high-resolution 200-inch telescope, we can see that the inner region is dark, only emiting UV radiation, and is surrounded by two visible rings: one greenish (ionized oxygene and nitrogene), and one red (hydrogene).
Procedure
We used a 16-inch reflecting telescope, custom-designed and built by DFM Engineering which was accessed by Macalester College. The telescope and CCD camera (SBIG ST-8 CCD) are interfaced with TheSkyIV imaging software. We took a two-minute exposure time with each of three different filters: B (appearing blue), Visible (appearing green) and Infrared (appearing red). All three images were then layered upon one another, creating the image above.
Analysis
As can be seen here, the red outer ring is not visible with our telescope and associated equipment. We believe that this is because our telescope was not sensitive enough to detect the less-intense hydrogene layer.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our lovely professor, Barton Pritzl, for his unending support and sense of humor. We will miss him! Dylan Semler was awesome and very helpful at teaching us to obtain our images -- even staying late at night for us! We would also like to thank the other members of the Fall 2005 Astronomical Techniques class. Y'all rock!
All work on this project was conducted by Arden Ashley and Kaye Utzinger.
References
Frommert, Hartmut and Christine Kronberg's website: http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m057.html
Webster's Dictionary website: www.webster.com
Macalester College Department of Physics and Astronomy website: www.macalester.edu/astronomy/
The central star is 100,000 to 120,000 K. It is thought that the ring nebula was probably once more massive than our Sun and now is cooling down and entering its' white dwarf stage. The size of the central star is approximately the same size as the terrestrial planets. With an excellent, high-resolution 200-inch telescope, we can see that the inner region is dark, only emiting UV radiation, and is surrounded by two visible rings: one greenish (ionized oxygene and nitrogene), and one red (hydrogene).
Obtaining Our CCD Image of the Ring Nebula
Procedure
We used a 16-inch reflecting telescope, custom-designed and built by DFM Engineering which was accessed by Macalester College. The telescope and CCD camera (SBIG ST-8 CCD) are interfaced with TheSkyIV imaging software. We took a two-minute exposure time with each of three different filters: B (appearing blue), Visible (appearing green) and Infrared (appearing red). All three images were then layered upon one another, creating the image above.
Analysis
As can be seen here, the red outer ring is not visible with our telescope and associated equipment. We believe that this is because our telescope was not sensitive enough to detect the less-intense hydrogene layer.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our lovely professor, Barton Pritzl, for his unending support and sense of humor. We will miss him! Dylan Semler was awesome and very helpful at teaching us to obtain our images -- even staying late at night for us! We would also like to thank the other members of the Fall 2005 Astronomical Techniques class. Y'all rock!
All work on this project was conducted by Arden Ashley and Kaye Utzinger.
References
Frommert, Hartmut and Christine Kronberg's website: http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m057.html
Webster's Dictionary website: www.webster.com
Macalester College Department of Physics and Astronomy website: www.macalester.edu/astronomy/