About Iris Nebula
Iris Nebula is a rare nebula. It sits in the constellation Cep and shines at apparent magnitude 7.2.
A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Rare nebula 37 EP
Iris Nebula
RA 315.3984° · Dec 68.1696° · openngc
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Score breakdown
· 6 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Nebula +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Bright deep-sky object +6
- Diffuse nebula +6
- Big on the sky +5
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
Total score 37
13 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Nebula · +8
- Bright deep-sky object · +6
- Has a proper name · +8
- Diffuse nebula · +6
- Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
- Big on the sky · +5
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Cepheus.
- Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Nebular colours are chemistry made visible — red for hydrogen, teal for oxygen, blue where starlight is merely scattered.
What's in a name
- 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
- constellation
- Cep
- dso type
- Neb
- mag
- 7.2
- name
- Iris Nebula
- named
- yes
- size arcmin
- 10
Nearby objects
How to see it
Look for Iris Nebula in the constellation Cep. At apparent magnitude 7.2, it is an easy target for binoculars.
Like any astronomical target, Iris 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 Iris Nebula is a rare nebula
Iris Nebula 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 6 science badges — Nebula, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Diffuse nebula, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Big on the sky — 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.