Red Object near edge of M20 The Trifid??

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meteoritehunterjim avatar
What is the red object just outside the blue nebulosity of the Trifid Nebula? I saw this in images made a few years ago of the  Trifid but thought nothing too much about it. Then a few months ago I imaged M46 and was told by an Astrobin member that there was a second small red planetary just a bit farther out than NGC2438. I have compared the fields of my Trifid image and the stars in Stellarium and hopped around confirming I think that the 11th magnitude star near the red object is not the red object and that no star shows in Stellarium at the spot of the object. I have Stellarium set to 17th magnitude on everything. I thought it might be a Minkowski planetary but I can never get Simbad to  open on my computer to get the catalogues of Mink planetaries.  PK planetary nebulas are turned on in Stellarium. The Minkowski Catalogue has about 60 planetary nebulas in Sagittarius so maybe it is one of those.  If someone knows what this object is I would love to know. It appears on others images of the Trifid too.  Thanks, Jim
This is the link to the image detail I made with the red object circled.
https://www.astrobin.com/full/7wnl5v/0/
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Gernot Schreider avatar
Hi Jim,

I tried to locate it with Simbad and I think it is V* V1948 Sgr -- a cool Carbon Star, pls see
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*%20V1948%20Sgr%20




CS
Gernot
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meteoritehunterjim avatar
Hi Gernot,
Thanks so much for the image and the name of the object. Until yesterday I knew nothing about carbon stars. I have some reading to do to learn more.  Your location is within a fraction of an arc second of the location I determined with a plate solve.  I am sure you  have found and solved my mystery. It sure sticks out in many images of the Trifid. It was the brightest ruby red spot on my image. Thanks for sharing the answer.
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Gernot Schreider avatar
Hi Jim,

you are very welcome.
It was a nice excercise how to go for identification of an unknown object with Simbad.

CS
Gernot