Fading Stingray Nebula

This image compares two drastically different portraits of the Stingray nebula captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope 20 years apart. The image on the left, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in March 1996, shows the nebula’s central star in the final stages of its life. The gas being puffed off by the dying star is much brighter when compared to the image of the nebula at the right, captured in January 2016 using the Wide Field Camera 3. The Stingray nebula is located in the direction of the southern constellation Ara (the Altar).

About the colours

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFPC2 and WFC3/UVIS instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F502N Green: F656N Red: F658N

About the data

The HST observations include those from programs 6039 (M. Bobrowsky) and 14126 (Z. Edwards)