Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6552
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NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco, Phil Swift
NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco
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NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco

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NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco, Phil Swift
NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco
Powered byPixInsight

NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco

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Description

The Cat's Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula and was 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.

Its small bright inner nebula subtends an average of 16.1 arcsec, with the outer prominent condensations about 25 arcsec.

It's distance from Earth is not well defined but recent Hubble measurements sugest that it is around 3300 light years away.

The central planetary nebula's surface temperature is aroung 80,000 kelvin. this is approximatly 10,000 times more luminous than the Sun.

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NGC6543 (C6) The Cat's Eye Nebula in the constellation of Draco, Phil Swift