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Epic nebula 56 EP

Little Ghost Nebula

RA 262.3354° · Dec -23.7594° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • 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
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
Total score 56

22 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • 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

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.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 11.4 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Ophiuchus.
  • 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 June — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 65.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 5.8 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

central star mag
15.94
constellation
Oph
dist ly
3716.454
dso type
PN
mag
11.4
name
Little Ghost Nebula
named
yes
radial velocity kms
-106
size arcmin
0.63

About Little Ghost Nebula

Little Ghost Nebula is an epic nebula. It lies about 3,716.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oph and shines at apparent magnitude 11.4.

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 Little Ghost Nebula in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 11.4, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, Little Ghost 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 Little Ghost Nebula is an epic nebula

Little Ghost Nebula scores 56 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 22 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Nebula, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), 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.