Planetary nebula Abell 39 About this image Abell 39, the 39th
entry in a catalog of large nebulae discovered by George Abell
in 1966, is a beautiful example of a planetary nebula. It was
chosen for study by George Jacoby (WIYN Observatory), Gary
Ferland (University of Kentucky), and Kirk Korista (Western
Michigan University) because of its beautiful and rare spherical
symmetry. This picture was taken at the WIYN Observatory's 3.5-m
(138-inch) telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson,
AZ, in 1997 through a blue-green filter that isolates the light
emitted by oxygen atoms in the nebula at a wavelength of 500.7
nanometers. The nebula has a diameter of about five light-years,
and the thickness of the spherical shell is about a third of a
light-year. The nebula itself is roughly 7,000 light-years from
Earth in the constellation Hercules. Minimum credit line:
WIYN/NOAO/NSF Comments by e-mail to
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