M 2-55 and its elusive fragmented bow-shock front

Date image was taken: October 11, 2023

Location: Fregenal de la Sierra, Spain

Image Description and Details: M 2-55 is an evolved rarely-imaged planetary nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It was first discovered and identified by the German-American astronomer Rudolph Minkowski on photographic plates at Mount Wilson in 1947. The plates were taken by W.C. Miller with a 10" f/5.2 refractor.
IM 2-55 possesses two sets of bipolar lobes.
It was only in 2020 that a team of Chinese professional astronomers detected an arc of material running from the SE to the SSW. (Chih-Hao Hsia et. al, March 13th 2020, “Discovery of Extended Structures around Two Evolved Planetary Nebulae M 2-55 and Abell 2”). They concluded that this arc was furnishing strong evidence for an interaction of the expanding nebula of \m 2-55 with its surrounding interstellar material. The presence of fragmentation in the arc may be the result of a phenomenon known as Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities.
A total of 115 hours HaOIIIRGB image capture
More information at https://www.imagingdeepspace.com/m-2-55.html

Equipment Details: Scopes: APM TMB LZOS 152 Refractors
Cameras: QSI6120wsg8
Mounts: 10Micron GM2000 HPS

Copyright: Copyright: Peter Goodhew