About NGC 6742
NGC 6742 is a rare nebula. It sits in the constellation Dra and shines at apparent magnitude 13.4.
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 37 EP
NGC 6742
RA 284.8329° · Dec 48.4653° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) +12
- Coming towards us +10
- Nebula +8
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
- Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 37
13 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Nebula · +8
- Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell) · +12
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- 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 13.4 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Draco.
- 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 July — 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 New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.
Properties
- constellation
- Dra
- dso type
- PN
- mag
- 13.4
- name
- NGC 6742
- radial velocity kms
- -159
- size arcmin
- 0.55
Nearby objects
- Epic Kepler-408 b exoplanet · <0.1° away
- Uncommon Kepler-814 b exoplanet · <0.1° away
- Uncommon Kepler-447 b exoplanet · 0.3° away
- Uncommon Kepler-1440 b exoplanet · 0.4° away
- Rare Kepler-1254 d exoplanet · 0.4° away
- Rare Kepler-1254 b exoplanet · 0.4° away
- Rare Kepler-1254 c exoplanet · 0.4° away
- Rare Kepler-1482 b exoplanet · 0.4° away
How to see it
Look for NGC 6742 in the constellation Dra. At apparent magnitude 13.4, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, NGC 6742 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 NGC 6742 is a rare nebula
NGC 6742 scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Nebula, Planetary nebula (a dying star's shell), Never sets (northern circumpolar), 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.