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A look ahead

Emmanuel Joly from Le Cannet-des-Maures, France

Sharpless 2–216 is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth, just 415 light-years away in Perseus. On the sky, it has a diameter three times larger than that of the Full Moon. Of course, the term “planetary nebula” is a misnomer — such objects are actually produced by stars like our Sun when they die, exhaling their outer layers into space. Also in the shot, at left, is the emission nebula LBN 755. This image comprises over 53 hours of exposure with a 2.8-inch scope in Hubble-palette filters, plus 30 minutes of RGB data.