This butterfly shaped nebula is about 2000 light years away in the constellation of Monoceros. It represents the last gasp of a binary star system. At the center lies a pair of stars orbiting each other once sixteen days. Those stars are very close and were no able to be resolved by the SCT… in fact there were not even resolved by the HST. One component of this binary system is the hot core of a star that has ejected most of its outer layers, producing the surrounding nebula. The total diameter of the nebula is about 1/3 light year and less than an arc minute.

I was testing the focal reducer right spacing for the QSI 583, however this object could be better resolved at 1600 of even 2000 focal length.The image was taken from my comfortable but polluted backyard in Martinez, only 20 km away from Buenos Aires City.