May 25, 2013

Image of the Ring Nebula obtained combining observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Large Binocular Telescope (Image NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), G.J. Ferland (University of Kentucky), W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico), David Thompson (University of Arizona))

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The Hubble Space Telescope gave us the most detailed observations ever obtained of the Ring Nebula. It’s a well known nebula but it still had some secrets. Now it’s been possible to build a three-dimensional model which includes the surrounding region by combining observations taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 with other ones such as the infrared ones from the Telescope Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mount Graham, Arizona, and the spectroscopic data from the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Mexico.