A planetary Nebula (N66) in the Large Magellanic Cloud: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/about/index.html">HST) has imaged N66, a planetary nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy). The image was obtained at 10:41 p.m. EDT on June 26, 1991, using the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera. This HST image is being presented on Thursday, January 16 at the 179th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the first time a planetary nebula has ever been seen so clearly in a galaxy beyond our own Milky Way. The nebula N66 is located 169,000 light-years away. The FOC image reveals complex structures and details as small as 0.08 light-years across (0.1 arcsecond resolution). None of these structures had ever been seen with ground-based telescopes. Although such an asymmetric structure had been anticipated based upon spectroscopic data taken with ground-based telescopes, the observed patterns are unprecedented. The FOC exposure lasted for just 540 seconds and was made through a filter which isolated the light of doubly ionized oxygen (5007 Angstroms). The image has been sharpened by computer image reconstruction, though all the structures are clearly evident in the raw image. The brightest part of the nebula has an angular diameter of about 2.4 arcseconds, which corresponds to a size of 1.9 light-years. The nebula was ejected by a luminous red giant star, which subsequently contracted to form a blue remnant star. Located at the center of the image, this remnant star ionizes the nebula, causing it to glow at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. The star is destined to become a white dwarf. Individual lobes of the nebulosity are expanding from the center with velocities of up to one quarter million miles per hour (100 kilometers per second).

Name: N 66
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Planetary
Category: Nebulae
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 8 April 1992, 06:00
Credit: J.C. Blades/NASA/ESA

Compact core of galaxy M32: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope clearly shows the central core of the elliptical galaxy M32. This green-light image was taken with HST's Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WPIPC), in high resolution mode, on August 17, 1991. The steady increase in brightness of M32 towards its center is readily apparent in the image, showing that the stars in M32 are strongly concentrated towards its nucleus, as if drawn into the center and held there by the gravitational field of a massive black hole. Theoretical models suggest that the structure of M32 is consistent with a central 3 million solar mass black hole.

Name: IRAS 00399+4035, M 32, Messier 32, NGC 221
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Component : Center/Core
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Andromeda
Distance: 2 million light years
Release date: 8 April 1992, 06:00
Credit: Tod R. Lauer/NASA/ESA

Clearest view yet of massive star cluster: A new image processing technique has yielded the clearest view yet of an extraordinary star cluster located about 169,000 light years from Earth. The new technique, called photometric reconstruction, was applied to a photograph of the star cluster Rl36 that was obtained with the Planetary Camera onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals that there are at least 47 stars located within an area 1.6 light years across in Rl36. (One light year is approximately 5.8 trillion miles long.) In contrast, the Sun is about 4 light years from the nearest known star, Proxima Centauri. "Our reconstructed photo of R136 shows what the raw Hubble photos will look like after the 1993 repair mission to fix the telescope's spherical aberration," says Goddard astronomer, Dr. Sally Heap.

Name: 30 Doradus, R136
Type: Local Universe : Star : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Star Clusters
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 1 April 1992, 07:00
Credit: NASA/ESA/Goddard Space Flight Center

One of hottest known stars captured in Hubble photograph: This photograph from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope presents the first clear view of one of the hottest known stars, the central star of nebula NGC 2440 in our Milky Way galaxy. The superhot star, called "the NGC 2440 nucleus" is the bright white dot in the center of this photograph. In previous photographs made with telescopes on the ground, blurring due to the Bath's atmosphere acted to smear together the light from the star with the glow of the surrounding nebula. By clearly separating the starlight from the nebular glow, astronomers have been able to make the most accurate estimate yet for the star temperature: a torrid 200,000 degrees Celsius (or 360,000 degree Fahrenheit) or more.

Name: IRAS 07396-1805, NGC 2440
Type: Milky Way : Nebula
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Puppis
Release date: 1 April 1992, 07:00
Credit: S. Heap, NASA/ESA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Optical jet in galaxy NGC 3862: A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region of the galaxy NGC 3862 reveals a jet-like feature previously unseen in optical wavelengths. The image was taken with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera in F196 mode at a wavelength of 3400 angstroms. The image's 0.06 arc second resolution reveals several knots and twists in the jet. The jet's full angular size is about 0.6 arc second, corresponding to a length of 740 light-years. NGC 3862 is an elliptical galaxy in a rich cluster of galaxies known as Abell 1367, located at a distance of about 260 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo. This new type of jet suggests that astronomers are seeing a new and unexpected phenomena in galactic nuclei.

Name: NGC 3862
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Elliptical
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 7 May 1992, 06:00
Credit: P. Crane (European Southern Observatory), and NASA/ESA

Digitized all sky-survey (ground-based image): These three pictures show a section of the digitized all sky-survey at different compression factors. The images will be written into CDROM (Compact Disk Read-Only Memory) format and will be available to professional and amateur astronomers. The sample image is of a 11.3 arc minute square region of the Hydra cluster of galaxies (Abell 1060), show in the spiral galaxy NGC 3312, and the elliptical galaxies NGC 3312 (right) and NGC 3309 (left). The top image was digitized from a SRC southern sky survey plate. The image 400 pixels picture elements on a side. The center picture has been compressed by a ratio of 10:1 and is useful for a wide range of astronomical research applications.

Name: Abell 1060, Hydra Cluster, IRAS 10346-2718, NGC 3309, NGC 3312
Type: Unspecified
Category: Galaxies
Release date: 7 May 1992, 06:00
Credit: STScI