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Epic nebula 50 EP

Blue Flash Nebula

RA 305.5958° · Dec 20.1045° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
50 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
Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • 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.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 11.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Delphinus.
  • 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.
  • Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

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

central star mag
15.7
constellation
Del
dso type
PN
mag
11.1
name
Blue Flash Nebula
named
yes
radial velocity kms
-4
size arcmin
0.67

Nearby objects

About Blue Flash Nebula

Blue Flash Nebula is an epic nebula. It sits in the constellation Del and shines at apparent magnitude 11.1.

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 Blue Flash Nebula in the constellation Del. At apparent magnitude 11.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, Blue Flash 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 Blue Flash Nebula is an epic nebula

Blue Flash Nebula scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Nebula, 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.