← Back to dex
Epic nebula 62 EP

Barbell Nebula

RA 25.5820° · Dec 51.5755° · openngc

Real photograph of Barbell Nebula 📷 Real photo
Göran Nilsson, Wim van Berlo & The Liverpool Telescope (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 6 badges
62 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Messier object +12
  • Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) +12
  • Its dying star is still visible +12
  • Coming towards us +10
  • Nebula +8
  • Has a proper name +8
Total score 62

16 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Messier object · +12
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) · +12
  • Coming towards us · +10
  • Its dying star is still visible · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M76.

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 10.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Perseus.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — 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.
  • Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

Properties

aliases
Cork Nebula, Little Dumbbell Nebula
central star mag
17.48
constellation
Per
dso type
PN
mag
10.1
messier
yes
messier number
076
name
Barbell Nebula
named
yes
radial velocity kms
-24
size arcmin
1.12

Nearby objects

About Barbell Nebula

Barbell Nebula is an epic nebula. It sits in the constellation Per and shines at apparent magnitude 10.1.

A planetary nebula: the shed outer atmosphere of a dying Sun-like star, lit from within by the naked stellar core left behind.

How to see it

Look for Barbell Nebula in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 10.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, Barbell Nebula 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 Barbell Nebula is an epic nebula

Barbell Nebula scores 62 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Nebula, Messier object, Has a proper name, Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell), Coming towards us and Its dying star is still visible — 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.