Review of Planetary Nebula Central Star

Summary:

Possible Undesignated Planetary Nebula in Cygnus: Central Star Location

Keith B Quattrocchi MD, PhD and Mel Helm, MD

September 6, 2008

This section reviews the efforts made to locate the central star. Having located and imaged this undesignated nebula in Cygnus, the issue of a possible central star was discussed. This could be seen on luminance images, but initially an RGB image was not assembled. Dana Patchick, an avid amateur astronomer and PN hunter in California, who also works with Dr. Jacoby (WIYN Observatory), saw our image and contacted us. Downloading the DSS blue, red and infrared images and layering them with our original NB image, he was able to obtain the following image:

Dana Patchick was then able to otain the central star location coordinates of 20 15 21.5 +38 02 43 (J2000). In addition the object was found to be a ~17th magnitude faintly blue central star (indicated between the tick marks in the image). Amazingly, these coordinates are nearly exactly those we obtained using the physical/geometrical center of the PN, ie, 20 15 22.16 +38 02 41.9 (which had been obtained manually from the image).

With this information in hand I assembled a true RGB image, layered luminance and the NB image. This produced more accurately colored stars without loosing the location fo the nebula. The central blue star has been slightly enhanced, but the color is accurate and it has a similar appearacne on the pure RGB image. The image is shown below:

I was struck by the vividly blue color of the star. The significance of this is under investigation and thie site will be updated as this and other information becomes available.