A Tale of Two Nebulae

This shining telescopic ogle towards the musical northern constellation Lyra unearths the faint outer halos and brighter central ring-fashioned space of M57, popularly identified because the Ring Nebula. To traditional astronomers M57 is a properly-identified planetary nebula. With a central ring about one gentle-yr across, M57 is indubitably no longer a planet though, however the gaseous screen of 1 of the Milky Formulation’s demise sun-like stars. Roughly the the same apparent measurement as M57, the fainter and additional most continuously misplaced sight of barred spiral galaxy on the left is IC 1296. In actual fact, over 100 years ago IC 1296 would favor been identified as a spiral nebula. By probability the pair are within the the same self-discipline of ogle, and whereas they give the influence of being to love the same sizes they are with no doubt very far apart. At a distance of a mere 2,000 gentle-years M57 is wisely within our agree with Milky Formulation galaxy. Extragalactic IC 1296 (aka PGC62532) is extra like 200,000,000 gentle-years distant. That is ready 100,000 times farther away than M57 but since they give the influence of being roughly the same in measurement, ancient spiral nebula IC 1296 must also be about 100,000 times elevated than planetary nebula M57. Observe carefully on the intriguing 21st century astroimage to self-discipline even extra distant background galaxies scattered during the frame.