About IC 972
IC 972 is a rare nebula. It sits in the constellation Vir and shines at apparent magnitude 13.9.
A planetary nebula: the shed outer atmosphere of a dying Sun-like star, lit from within by the naked stellar core left behind.
Rare nebula 36 EP
IC 972
RA 211.1080° · Dec -17.2282° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) +12
- Coming towards us +10
- Nebula +8
- On the zodiac +3
- Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 36
14 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Nebula · +8
- Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) · +12
- On the zodiac · +3
- Coming towards us · +10
- Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A planetary nebula: the shed outer atmosphere of a dying Sun-like star, lit from within by the naked stellar core left behind.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 13.9 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Virgo.
- Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around April — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Its teal-green comes from doubly-ionised oxygen at 501 nanometres, and its red from hydrogen at 656 — colours no ordinary object on Earth produces.
What's in a name
- A misleading name. 'Planetary nebula' is a 240-year-old mistake. William Herschel coined it in the 1780s because these round greenish discs resembled the planet Uranus he had just discovered. There are no planets involved whatsoever.
How we came to know it
- The Index Catalogue. The IC was the 1895 and 1908 supplement to the NGC — the first catalogue in history to be filled largely with objects found on photographic plates rather than by eye.
Properties
- constellation
- Vir
- dso type
- PN
- mag
- 13.9
- name
- IC 972
- radial velocity kms
- -27
- size arcmin
- 0.7
How to see it
Look for IC 972 in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 13.9, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, IC 972 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why IC 972 is a rare nebula
IC 972 scores 36 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 14 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Nebula, Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell), On the zodiac, Coming towards us and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.