NGC 1514 (Fall 2017)

This lovely planetary nebula sits on the northern edge of the constellation Taurus, almost in Perseus.  It is visible in late fall and winter.  NGC 1514 was discovered by William Herschel in November 1790.  His study of it is supposed to have persuaded him that not all fuzzy deep sky objects were unresolved groups of stars; this one, he thought, looked like something else.

Perhaps what persuaded him was the very bright star at its center, such a contrast to the nebulosity surrounding it.  The star at the center is a spectroscopic double star.  A study released in 2017 shows that the two stars have a highly eccentric orbit of about 9 years!  (Thanks, Mike Ressler, for the tip (see the comments).)  This study followed other studies that suggested an orbit as short as 10 days (2003) or that the two stars did not orbit each other at all (2016).

In 2010, a NASA infrared telescope revealed that NGC 1514 has two, symmetrical rings around it.  The rings are located outside of the nebulosity shown above and glow in a part of the spectrum not picked up by my camera.  It is proof that even well-studied objects can present new mysteries.

This image is 19x600" through an OIII filter with the SXVF-H9 and 36x720" through an Astronomik CLS filter with the SXVF-H9C.  All sub-frames were taken through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at eff. f/8.1 in Fall 2017.