Jones Nebula

This nebula was recently brought to my attention by a friend, telling me about its history, being one of the few astronomical objects named after a woman.  Jones 1 is a  very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Pegasus and discovered by Rebecca Jones of Harvard University in 1941 using photographic plates.  Jones made her career as an assistant to other more "notable" astronomers of the day, including Harlow Shapley and Wallace Eckert. 

 A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.  This nebula is larger than many of its type, but is quite faint.

The blue-green expanding outer shell of OIII ionized gas is caused by the expelled outer layers of the hot mag 16 blue star seen in the center. This occurs near the end of a stars life. Over 90% of stars will end in this phase before becoming a white dwarf while the remainder will become supernovae. 

I wanted to grab an image of this, but the lack of clear skies limited me to just over 2 hours of exposure.  This faint nebula requires much more time, and so I will likely revisit it next time we get some clear skies.