NGC 5189 from Hubble

Why is this beautiful nebula so complicated ? When a star is dying, it blast away its outer layers, usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe, and sometimes a ring or a helix. In this image, however, no such simple structure has emerged. To help find out why, Hubble Space Telescope recently observed NGC 5189 in Hydrogen, Oxygen and Sulfur emission lines. Previous findings indicated the existence of multiple periods of material outflow, including a recent one that created a bright but distorted bar-like feature running horizontally across image center. Results appear consistent with a hypothesis that the dying star is part of a binary star system with a precessing symmetry axis. Given this new data, though, research is sure to continue.

Image:

Details:

All data was taken by Hubble’s WFC3 from the following proposal: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=12812

Red: 
hst_12812_04_wfc3_uvis_f673n
Green: hst_12812_04_wfc3_uvis_f657n
Blue: hst_12812_04_wfc3_uvis_f502n

Processing:

• Cropped all images
• TGV denoise on all images
• MMT denoise on all images
• Masked stretch + Histogram stretch
• Combine in SHO pallete
• Slight curves adjustment
• HDR multiscale trasnform
• MMT sharpening (large scale)
• MLT sharpening (small scale)
• Local Histogram equalization
• Curves to improve contrast