A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.
The Calabash Nebula, also known as the Rotten Egg Nebula or by its technical name OH 231.84 +4.22, is a protoplanetary nebula (PPN) 1.4 light years long and located some 5,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. The name "Calabash Nebula" was first proposed in 1989 in an early paper on its expected nebular dynamics, based on the nebula's appearance. The Calabash is almost certainly a member of the open cluster Messier 46, as it has the same distance, radial velocity, and proper motion. The central star is QX Puppis, a binary composed of a very cool Mira variable and an A-type main-sequence star.
Messier 21 or M21, also designated NGC 6531 or Webb's Cross, is an open cluster of stars located to the north-east of Sagittarius in the night sky, close to the Messier objects M20 to M25. It was discovered and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. This cluster is relatively young and tightly packed. A few blue giant stars have been identified in the cluster, but Messier 21 is composed mainly of small dim stars. With a magnitude of 6.5, M21 is not visible to the naked eye; however, with the smallest binoculars it can be easily spotted on a dark night. The cluster is positioned near the Trifid nebula, but is not associated with that nebulosity. It forms part of the Sagittarius OB1 association.
Messier 35 or M35, also known as NGC 2168 or the Shoe-Buckle Cluster, is a relatively close open cluster of stars in the west of Gemini, at about the declination of the Sun when the latter is at June solstice. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux around 1745 and independently discovered by John Bevis before 1750. It is scattered over part of the sky almost the size of the full moon and is 2,970 light-years away. The compact open cluster NGC 2158 lies directly southwest of it.
Messier 36 or M36, also known as NGC 1960 or the Pinwheel Cluster, is an open cluster of stars in the somewhat northern Auriga constellation. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654, who described it as a nebulous patch. The cluster was independently re-discovered by Guillaume Le Gentil in 1749, then Charles Messier observed it in 1764 and added it to his catalogue. It is about 1,330 pc away from Earth. The cluster is very similar to the Pleiades cluster (M45), and if as far away it would be of similar apparent magnitude.
Messier 37 is the brightest and richest open cluster in the constellation Auriga. It was discovered by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654. M37 was missed by French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil when he rediscovered M36 and M38 in 1749. French astronomer Charles Messier independently rediscovered M37 in September 1764 but all three of these clusters were recorded by Hodierna. It is classified as Trumpler type I,1,r or I,2,r.
Messier 48 or M48, also known as NGC 2548, is an open cluster of stars in the equatorial constellation of Hydra. It sits near Hydra's westernmost limit with Monoceros, about 18° 34′ to the east and slightly south of Hydra's brightest star, Alphard. This grouping was discovered by Charles Messier in 1771, but there is no cluster precisely where Messier indicated; he made an error, as he did with M47. The value that he gave for the right ascension matches, however, his declination is off by five degrees. Credit for discovery is sometimes given instead to Caroline Herschel in 1783. Her nephew John Herschel described it as, "a superb cluster which fills the whole field; stars of 9th and 10th to the 13th magnitude – and none below, but the whole ground of the sky on which it stands is singularly dotted over with infinitely minute points".
Messier 50 or M 50, also known as NGC 2323 or the Heart-shaped Cluster, is an open cluster of stars in the constellation Monoceros. It was recorded by G. D. Cassini before 1711 and independently discovered by Charles Messier in 1772 while observing Biela's Comet. It is sometimes described as a 'heart-shaped' figure or a blunt arrowhead.
Messier 67 and sometimes called the King Cobra Cluster or the Golden Eye Cluster is an open cluster in the southern, equatorial half of Cancer. It was discovered by Johann Gottfried Koehler in 1779. Estimates of its age range between 3.2 and 5 billion years. Distance estimates are likewise varied, but typically are 800–900 parsecs (2,600–2,900 ly). Estimates of 855, 840, and 815 pc were established via binary star modelling and infrared color-magnitude diagram fitting.
The Owl Nebula is a planetary nebula approximately 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Estimated to be about 8,000 years old, it is approximately circular in cross-section with a faint internal structure. It was formed from the outflow of material from the stellar wind of the central star as it evolved along the asymptotic giant branch. The nebula is arranged in three concentric shells, with the outermost shell being about 20–30% larger than the inner shell. The owl-like appearance of the nebula is the result of an inner shell that is not circularly symmetric, but instead forms a barrel-like structure aligned at an angle of 45° to the line of sight.
Messier 110, or M110, also known as NGC 205, is a dwarf elliptical galaxy that is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy in the Local Group.
NGC 5189 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Musca. It was discovered by James Dunlop on 1 July 1826, who catalogued it as Δ252. For many years, well into the 1960s, it was thought to be a bright emission nebula. It was Karl Gordon Henize in 1967 who first described NGC 5189 as quasi-planetary based on its spectral emissions.
NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula in the southern constellation of Puppis. Parallax measurements by Gaia put the central star at a distance of roughly 1,370 light years. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1786. NGC 2438 appears to lie within the cluster M46, but it is most likely unrelated since it does not share the cluster's radial velocity.
NGC 1316 is a lenticular galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax. It is a radio galaxy and at 1400 MHz is the fourth-brightest radio source in the sky.
NGC 7354 is a planetary nebula located in the northern circumpolar constellation of Cepheus, at a distance of approximately 5.5 kly from the Sun. It was discovered by German-born astronomer William Herschel on November 3, 1787. John L. E. Dreyer described it as, "a planetary nebula, bright, small, round, pretty gradually a very little brighter middle".
NGC 6530 is a young open cluster of stars in the southern constellation of Sagittarius, located some 4,300 light years from the Sun. It exists within the H II region known as the Lagoon Nebula, or Messier 8, and spans an angular diameter of 14.0′. The nebulosity was first discovered by G. B. Hodierna prior to 1654, then re-discovered by J. Flamsteed circa 1680. It was P. Loys who classified it as a cluster in 1746, as he could only resolve stars. The following year, G. Le Gentil determined it was both a nebula and a cluster.
NGC 2818 is a planetary nebula located in the southern constellation Pyxis. It consists largely of glowing gases from the star's outer layers ejected during the final stages of its life when it had run out of the fuel necessary to sustain its core fusion processes. The remnants of its core will remain as a white dwarf. The mass of the nebula is estimated at about 0.6 solar masses, while the progenitor star was likely about 2.3 times the mass of the Sun.
NGC 2232 is a bright open star cluster in the equatorial constellation of Monoceros, centered on the star 10 Monocerotis. It is located in the Gould Belt close to the Orion Nebula cluster, at a mean distance of 1,060 ly from the Sun. The average radial velocity of the cluster members is 26.6±0.77 km/s. This is one of the nearest open clusters to the Sun, which makes it a potentially useful target for studying young stars and their transition to the main sequence.
NGC 6445, also known as the Little Gem Nebula or Box Nebula, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 28, 1786. The distance of NGC 6445 is estimated to be slightly more than 1,000 parsecs based on the parallax measured by Gaia, which was measured at 0.9740±0.3151 mas.
