Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Lepus (Lep)  ·  Contains:  IC 418  ·  PK215-24.1
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IC 418, Gary Imm
IC 418, Gary Imm

IC 418

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC 418, Gary Imm
IC 418, Gary Imm

IC 418

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Description

Yes, there is a DSO object in the star field! This object is a tiny planetary nebula located 5000 light years away in the constellation of Lepus at a declination of -13 degrees. This PN spans 20 arc-seconds in our apparent view, about the same as Saturn, which corresponds to a diameter of 0.5 light year.

This object is nicknamed the Spirograph Nebula because of the strange inner texture pattern which appears in the Hubble image. My equipment is not sufficient to show such a pattern.

This nebula is tiny but so bright that it allowed me to take an RGB image, so unlike the Hubble image, the colors here should be representative of the actual nebula. The bright 10th magnitude central star is clearly visible. I found it interesting that the color of the nebula is a slightly different shade of red on the top vs on the bottom, which could be an artifact but I have seen that also on another RGB image of this object.

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