Bright star — faint galaxy: Astronomers are used to encountering challenges in their work, but studying the prosaically-named galaxy PGC 39058 proves more difficult than usual. Due to a stroke of bad luck, a bright star happens to lie between the galaxy and the Earth, meaning our view is partly obscured by the glare of the star. The astounding image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the nearby star easily outshining the more distant galaxy PGC 39058. The galaxy is about 14 million light-years away and contains millions of stars — many of them not unlike the bright star in the foreground. The bright foreground star seems to shine with incredible intensity due to the power of Hubble. Most Earth-bound observers would however consider the star to be quite faint. At magnitude 6.7, binoculars or a small telescope are needed to see it at all. That the image manages to capture both objects serves to further highlight Hubble’s excellent optics and sharp vision. PGC 39058 is a dwarf galaxy, which explains its faintness despite its modest distance by galaxy standards. The sharp Hubble image easily resolves it completely into its component stars and also reveals many much more distant galaxies in the background. This star and galaxy pair is located within the constellation of Draco (the Dragon). It is visible in the northern hemisphere, appearing to slither over a large portion of the sky around the north celestial pole. The ancient Greeks claimed that Draco represented Ladon, the dragon with 100 heads. One of Hercules' twelve near-impossible tasks was to steal golden apples guarded by Ladon. The difficulty of this challenge is perhaps on a par with observing such a faint galaxy obscured by a bright star. This picture was created from images taken using the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images through yellow (F606W, shown as blue) and near infrared (F814W, shown as red) were combined. The exposure times were 20 minutes and 15 minutes respectively and the field of view is 2 × 1.6 arcminutes.

Name: PGC 39058
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Size : Dwarf
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Draco
Distance: 18 million light years
Release date: 13 September 2010, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

A star Makes a billowy exit: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope snapped this striking image of an aging star whose outer layers of gas have blown off into space. These gases glow in the fierce ultraviolet glare from the hot, small remnant of the star at the cloud's centre. This object, which is designated NGC 6741, also known as the Phantom Streak Nebula, is located about 7000 light-years away in the constellation of Aquila (the Eagle). NGC 6741 is classed as a planetary nebula, though no planets are responsible for this billowy cloud; the term came about in the 18th century because the round gas shells resembled the Solar System's outer giant planets in astronomers' telescopes. Although fairly bright, this object appears very small though a typical telescope and was missed by early surveyors of the skies and only spotted in 1882 by Edward Charles Pickering. Stars with sizes that are somewhat smaller than our Sun to several times its mass often become planetary nebulae. This brief, late-in-life phase is entered after stars have ballooned into red giants. The still-energetic cores of these swollen stars cast off their own outer gaseous layers and the expanding bubble of material is set aglow by the central star's intense ultraviolet light. The newly formed planetary nebula then shines for perhaps 10 000 years before the material drifts away and leaves the progenitor star to very slowly cool and fade. Planetary nebulae are short-lived and come in a wide assortment of shapes and sizes. Only about a fifth are spherical, and others can look like rings, discs, tubes or be entirely without symmetry, owing to distortions introduced by magnetic fields, binary central stars and as-yet unexplained phenomena. NGC 6741 does contain a second star and is thought to be well along in its period as a planetary nebula, and has assumed more of a rectangular shape, rather like a luminous pillow. This picture was created from images taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The red light was captured through a filter that isolated the red glow from hydrogen (F658N), light through a yellow filter was coloured green (F555W), and the blue was a combination of the green and the glow of oxygen (F555W and F502N). The exposure times were ten minutes (F658N), two minutes (F555W) and ten minutes (F502W). The field of view spans just 24 arcseconds.

Name: NGC 6741, Phantom Streak Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Planetary
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Aquila
Distance: 7000 light years
Release date: 20 September 2010, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA﻿