Anomaly nebula 87 EP

Crab Nebula

RA 83.6332° · Dec 22.0145° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

87 pts · Anomaly

Anomaly 120 pts → Mythic

The Crab Nebula +30
Supernova remnant +26
Messier object +12
Nebula +8
Has a proper name +8
On the zodiac +3

Total score 87

33 more points to reach Mythic.

Badges

Nebula · +8
Messier object · +12
Has a proper name · +8
Supernova remnant · +26
On the zodiac · +3
The Crab Nebula · +30

Trivia

Hard to believe

Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M1.

What it actually is

What it actually is. A supernova remnant: the shredded corpse of an exploded star, still tearing outwards through interstellar space at thousands of kilometres a second.

Sense of scale

Sense of scale. Explosions like this forged most of the calcium in your bones and the iron in your blood, then flung it out to be recycled.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Taurus.
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 December — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Its tangled filaments glow in the colours of shock-heated gas, and it radiates in X-rays and radio as well as light.

What's in a name

Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

Properties

constellation: Tau
dso type: SNR
mag: 8.4
messier: yes
messier number: 001
name: Crab Nebula
named: yes
size arcmin: 8

Nearby objects

About Crab Nebula

Crab Nebula is an anomaly nebula. It sits in the constellation Tau and shines at apparent magnitude 8.4.

A supernova remnant: the shredded corpse of an exploded star, still tearing outwards through interstellar space at thousands of kilometres a second.

How to see it

Look for Crab Nebula in the constellation Tau. At apparent magnitude 8.4, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, Crab 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 Crab Nebula is an anomaly nebula

Crab Nebula scores 87 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the anomaly tier. Another 33 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Nebula, Messier object, Has a proper name, Supernova remnant, On the zodiac and The Crab Nebula — 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.