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The Ring Nebula is a classic example of a  planetary nebula - an expanding cloud of gas given off by a dying star.  The nebula's ring-like appearance is an illusion as it really cylinder shaped. Our location in space gives us a view looking down the cylinder making it look like a ring.  

At the center of the nebula lies a hot (>100,000 K) white dwarf star.  The nebula is located approximately 2,000 light years away and is nearly one light year across.  This hot star ionizes the expanding gas causing it to glow.  A detail of just the nebula can be seen here (860 kb).

The Ring Nebula lies within the constellation of Lyra, the harp, but too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. In 1779 Charles Messier made it the fifty seventh object, M 57, of his famous catalog.  Numerous galaxies, lying far behind the Ring Nebula, can be seen in the full resolution image.  The largest, and closest, is the spiral galaxy known as IC 1296 which is located 200 million light years away.

The image was obtained using the 200-inch Hale Telescope's Wide field Infrared Camera at Palomar Observatory by Kevin Bundy of the California Institute of Technology.  This color image is composed of three near-infrared images.  The red colors come from an image obtained at 2.2 microns, green from 1.65 microns and blue from 1.25 microns. 

The research was based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, as part of a collaborative agreement between the California Institute of Technology, its divisions Caltech Optical Observatories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (operated for NASA), and Cornell University.

Ring Nebula (M57) photographed by Tom Jarrett with the 200-inch at Prime Focus IR Camera @ 1.3-2.17 microns.  

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