The Cat's Eye Nebula
NGC 6543 in Draco
was discovered by William Herschel in 1786. It was the first planetary whose spectrum proved that planetaries were nebulae, and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the Cat's Eye (Caldwell 6) has knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, illuminated by the extremely hot, central Wolf–Rayet star, WR 124.
Observations suggest that the dying star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year intervals, forming the beautiful, outer dust shell.
Thanks to Telescope Live, for the data!
LARGE
was discovered by William Herschel in 1786. It was the first planetary whose spectrum proved that planetaries were nebulae, and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the Cat's Eye (Caldwell 6) has knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, illuminated by the extremely hot, central Wolf–Rayet star, WR 124.
Observations suggest that the dying star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year intervals, forming the beautiful, outer dust shell.
Thanks to Telescope Live, for the data!
LARGE