Looking at the Cat’s Eye Nebula with Hubble (potm2602b)

C6 · planetary nebula

Cat's Eye Nebula

The Cat's Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786.

RA17h 58m 33sDec+66° 37' 58"

Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Z. Tsvetanov. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Identity & coordinates

Identification

Primary designation
C6
All designations
C6 · NGC 6543 · Cat's Eye Nebula
Object type
Planetary Nebula
Constellation
Draco
Best viewing
Spring · Summer

Coordinates & physical

Right ascension (J2000)
17h 58m 33s
Declination (J2000)
+66° 37' 58"
Apparent magnitude (V)
Distance
Redshift (z)
0.042000
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Visibility tonight

V

The science

The Cat's Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the object has had high-resolution images by the Hubble Space Telescope revealing knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, being illuminated by the central hot planetary nebula nucleus (PNN).

It is a well-studied object that has been observed from radio to X-ray wavelengths. At the centre of the Cat's Eye Nebula is a dying Wolf–Rayet star, the sort of which can be seen in the Webb Telescope's image of WR 124. The Cat's Eye Nebula's central star shines at magnitude +11.4. Hubble Space Telescope images show a sort of dart board pattern of concentric rings emanating outwards from the centre.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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References

1 merge conflict resolved
  • coordinates: SIMBAD missing → NED used