APOD: 2022 May 21 - Planetary Nebula Abell 7

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to the May 21st Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Planetary Nebula Abell 7." What is a planetary nebula? From Wikipedia: "...as early as January 1779, the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix described in his observations of the Ring Nebula, very dim but perfectly outlined; it is as large as Jupiter and resembles a fading planet". I suspect they did look like planets when looking through old telescopes.

Abell 7 lies some 1,800 light years from Earth just south of the constellation Orion. While we cannot see it with the unaided eye, the nebula slides into focus when we look through narrowband filters that tease out the presence of ionized hydrogen (red) and oxygen (green/blue). Our Sun will likely look this way in another 5-6 billion years. Astronomer George Abell first documented Abell 7 in the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey published in 1955.