Abell 82: the miniature Dumbbell

George O. Abell was a famous American astronomer and science professor at UCLA, who became notably renowned for two reasons:

• His outstanding work combatting superstition, astrology and other forms of pseudoscience, inciting people to embrace reasoning and enlightenment.

• The catalogue he compiled in the 1950's of over 4,000 astronomical objects, mostly clusters of galaxies but also some faint nebulae.

 

Abell objects are notorious for being incredibly difficult and often at the limit of sizeable telescopes, even under dark skies. However, there are a few exceptions which are also within reach of more modest apertures. One of them is Abell 82, a planetary nebula in Cassiopeia, very close to Caroline's Rose. Don't be fooled, because it remains one of Abell's faint fuzzies and therefore don't expect anything spectacular. That being said, the planetary was quite evident in my binoscope and I was able to distiguish some interesting detail at 190x. Some have described this little nebula as a miniature Dumbbell and I have to agree. Both "wings" of the dumbbell structure were quite visible. 

 

A peculiar thing about this planetary is that no-one still knows for sure where its central star's got to. The reasonably bright star, which appears within the nebula's boundaries, matches a typical central star's hot surface temperature but is too far off-centre to be a suitable candidate. The faint star near the nebula's centre, on the other hand, is a cool K-class star and is therefore most unlikely the culprit. Perhaps this cool star has a close companion that recently kicked the bucket, shedding its atmosphere in the process, but it has yet to be discovered.