File:Ghost_of_Jupiter_Nebula.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Key facts
- Right ascension
- 10 24 46.1
- Declination
- −18 ° 38 ′ 32.6 ″
- Distance
- 4800±500 ly
- Apparent dimensions v
- 25″
- Constellation
- Hydra
- Designations
- Ghost of Jupiter, Jupiter's Ghost, Eye Nebula, Caldwell 59
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
NGC 3242 (also known as the Ghost of Jupiter, Eye Nebula or Caldwell 59) is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Hydra.
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.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NGC 3242” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.