The Dumbbell nebula is the result of the death throes of an aging star, expelling its outer layers into a shell of debris that expands into space. The blue region consists of mostly oxygen, whereas the reds, oranges, yellows and pinkish white clouds contain hydrogen, sulfur and nitrogen. Since all of this stuff comes from just a single star, these types of nebulae tend to be small compared to other gaseous expanses. Their relatively small size and roughly circular shape must have reminded early observers of planets - Thus the term "planetary nebulae" was chosen to represent these phenomena, even though they have little to do with planets.
One notable characteristic of these nebulae are the knots of bright material crowding the inner spaces. In this image, you can see finger-like projections surrounding the central star. Likely what's causing these are stellar winds that, while not powerful enough to break up the denser clumps, are yet able to blow away the lighter dust and gases leaving these knotty trails behind. They remind me of rocket contrails as they disperse in the atmosphere.
The Dumbbell is 1,360 light years away, so pretty close, yet it spans only eight arcminutes in the sky. The star at the center is now a white dwarf - a shadow of its former self. But in its glory days, it might have looked a bit more like our own sun before eventually swelling up into a red giant, and then puffing off its outer layers to create this lovely galactic sculpture - in a sort of final farewell to the galaxy. This picture gives us a glimpse of what our Sun may become when it runs out of nuclear fuel in the distant future.

在我使用 14" SCT 拍攝的第二張測試圖像中，我們正在觀察西面紗星雲的尾部 - 較大的天鵝座環的一部分。我喜歡這張圖像中復雜的花邊圖案，同樣引人注目的是所有這些藍色電離氧鏈的普遍存在。在太空的大多數區域，氧氣遠不如氫氣普遍，因為它需要由恆星製造。我們在以下區域看到的情況本質上是來自我們已不復存在的前幾代恆星的大量碎片。

特別是，我們在面紗星雲中看到如此多藍色的原因是我們正在觀察一顆巨星（超新星）爆炸的殘餘物。這次爆炸產生的衝擊波與周圍空間中的物質碰撞，提供了足夠的能量來從氧原子中驅逐最外層的電子，從而產生了這裡可見的可愛的藍色鏈。隨著超新星遺蹟的發展，這顆星的規模非常巨大，覆蓋了與仙女座星系一樣多的天空。天鵝座環的表面尺寸巨大的部分原因是它距離地球非常近，只有兩千多光年。