Astronomy

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile captured an image of the planetary nebula PN A66 33. This nebula is usually referred to as Abell 33. The nebula is aligned with a star in a foreground, which appears to have the resemblance of a diamond ring. This star's name is HD 83535 and it lies between Earth and Abell 33. Abell 33 is located about 2500 light years away from Earth. The nebula is very symmetrical, almost appearing to look like a circle in the sky. This is very uncommon because there always seems to be something that gives a nebula an irregular shape. The remnant of the Abell 33's star can be seen just a bit off of the center of the nebula. It is on it's way to becoming a white dwarf star. The remnant star is still very bright, shining brighter than the Sun, emitting enough ultraviolet radiation to make the nebula grow. Abell 33 is one of 86 objects in George Abell's catalogue of Planetary Nebulae. "Abell also scoured the skies for galaxy clusters, comping the Abell Catalogue of over 4000 of these clusters in both the northern and souther hemispheres of the sky." The image uses data from the Focal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) that is hitched onto the Very Large Telescope.





Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140409094228.htm

http://s273.photobucket.com/user/Astronomerica/media/SDSS-1/Abell33-wide-SDSS.jpg.html