Click here for a higher-resolution image

At the lower left of this image is the well-known open cluster M46 in Puppis. Most amateur astronomers are familiar with the planetary nebula NGC 2438 (labelled in the image above) that appears to lie within the open cluster (actually, it is behind it). But very few know that there are actually four planetary nebulae near M46 in the sky! To the left of NGC 2438 is the small red streak known as the Calabash Nebula. This is actually a protoplanetary nebula, which simply means a planetary nebula in its early stages of development. At the top left of the image is M 1-18 (Minkowsky 1-18), a small but fairly bright and very round planetary.

The especially interesting feature of this image is the fourth planetary nebula, BMP J0739-1418. This planetary was discovered around 2007 and reported, along with several hundred other new planetaries, in the 2007 paper "MASH-II: More Planetary Nebulae from the AAO/UKST H-a Survey", by Miszalski, Parker, Acker, Birkby, Frew, and Kovacevic. This paper (actually, the MASH-II catalog which can be found in Vizier) contains an H-alpha-only image of BMP J0739-1418, but as far as I know this is the first full-color (H-a/O-III) image of it. The H-alpha signal is extremely faint, and entirely featureless, but the O-III is ever so slightly brighter and shows some detail, with an obvious brighter patch on the east side.

This is an HO image with a total of 3.6 hours of exposure, taken with a 0.5m telescope at the Chilescope observatory.