NGC 3242

Last updated
NGC 3242
Emission nebula
Planetary nebula
NGC 3242 "Ghost of Jupiter".png
A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of core region of NGC 3242.
Credit: HST/NASA/ESA.
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension 10h 24m 46.1s [1]
Declination −18° 38′ 32.6″ [1]
Distance4800±500 [2]   ly
Apparent magnitude (V)8.60
Apparent dimensions (V)25″
Constellation Hydra
DesignationsGhost of Jupiter, Jupiter's Ghost, Eye Nebula, Caldwell  59
See also: Lists of nebulae

NGC 3242 (also known as the Ghost of Jupiter, Eye Nebula or Caldwell 59) is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Hydra.

Contents

William Herschel discovered the nebula on February 7, 1785, and catalogued it as H IV.27. John Herschel observed it from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, in the 1830s, and numbered it as h 3248, and included it in the 1864 General Catalogue as GC 2102; this became NGC 3242 in J. L. E. Dreyer's New General Catalogue of 1888.

This planetary nebula is most frequently called the Ghost of Jupiter , or Jupiter's Ghost due to its similar shape to the planet, but it is also sometimes referred to as the Eye Nebula. [3] The nebula measures around two light years long from end to end, and contains a central white dwarf with an apparent magnitude of 11. The inner layers of the nebula were formed some 1,500 years ago. [4] The two ends of the nebula are marked by FLIERs, lobes of fast moving gas often tinted red in false-color pictures. [5] NGC 3242 can easily be observed with amateur telescopes and appears bluish-green to most observers. Larger telescopes can distinguish the outer halo as well. [6]

At the center of NGC 3242 is an O-type star with a spectral type of O(H). [7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "NGC 3242". SIMBAD . Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 2007-04-20.
  2. ↑ Gaia Collaboration et al. (2018b): Summary of the contents and survey properties Archived 2019-08-08 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ Frommert, Hartmut. "NGC 3242". SEDS. Archived from the original on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  4. ↑ Mobberley, Martin (2009). The Caldwell Objects and How to Observe Them. New York: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. p. 128. ISBN   978-1-4419-0326-6.
  5. ↑ "NGC 3242, Ghost of Jupiter". ESA. Archived from the original on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  6. ↑ "The Ghost of Jupiter". Archived from the original on 2009-02-05. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
  7. ↑ González-Santamaría, I.; Manteiga, M.; Manchado, A.; Ulla, A.; Dafonte, C.; López Varela, P. (2021). "Planetary nebulae in Gaia EDR3: Central star identification, properties, and binarity". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 656: A51. arXiv: 2109.12114 . Bibcode:2021A&A...656A..51G. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202141916. S2CID   237940344.
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