Monthly Archives: May 2026

Oddball Planetary Nebula

20-inch keller-cassegrain, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, fr2-8, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, namibia, pgc, pgc49877, planetarischer nebel, planetary nebula, world, zentaur
PGC 49877 / Fr 2-8 – Galaxy / Planetary Nebula in Centaurus – OSC v1

Imaged at the IAS Hakos Observatory, Namibia with the 20″ Philipp Keller Cassegrain at full focal length of 4500 mm, f/9, this oddball object is listed both as a galaxy (PGC 49877) and a planetary nebula (Fr 2-8).

Quoting from Planetary Nebulae in the Solar Neighbourhood: Statistics, Distance Scale and Luminosity Function by David John Frew

Fr 2-8 (Fr 1400-5102, AM 1357-504, LEDA 49877). This small nebula, about 2′ across, was found serendipitously from SHASSA field 057, while measuring a Hα flux from the nearby PN MeWe 2-4, and has been confirmed spectroscopically as a high-excitation PN, with the 2.3m MSSSO telescope. The position is coincident with the SIMBAD ‘galaxy’ AM1357-504 (Arp & Madore 1987). It had been independently noted as a PN by Cˆote et al. (1997), but no details were provided in their paper.

Interestingly enough, the team around IAS member Uwe Glahn observed this object visually at Hakos back in 2009.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Cometary Globule CG 19

28-inch-newton, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, cg19, cometary globule, dark nebula, gamsberg, gamsberg plateau, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory gamsberg, khomas, namibia, world, zentaur
CG 19 – Cometary Globule in Centaurus – OSC v1

Results from the second night at the IAS observatory on the Gamsberg plateau with the 28 inch Newtonian “Wolf-Peter-Hartmann-Teleskop”, adding to my growing catalog of cometary globules.

Alas, sky flats at dusk didn’t work well, so some of the dust struture seen here may be artefacts of the calibration and gradient removal.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →