NGC 3242

Jupiter's spirit (even with NGC 3242 ) is an planetary nebula in the constellation Hydra.

The fog is composed of a dense area with a diameter of 16 × 24 arcsec and a visible fainter envelope of 40 × 35 arcseconds together. Since the outer shell of the nebula is approximately the same extent as the planet Jupiter in the telescope, he is also known as Jupiter's spirit ( engl: Ghost of Jupiter) respectively. The apparent brightness of the visible nebula is 7.7 mag.

However, Photographic images show that the mist with 20.8 minutes of arc is much more extensive (for comparison, the moon has on the earth seen from a diameter of about 30 arc minutes).

In the center is a white dwarf star with a visual magnitude of 12.1 is like. Its distance from the Sun could not be clearly determined so far, but is usually given as 2,500 light-years. Another estimate is, however, from a distance of 1,400 light years.

Was discovered in the fog on February 7, 1785 by William Herschel, who cataloged it as H 4.27. John Herschel watched him from around 1830 from the Cape of Good Hope, and took him in 1864 as the GC 2102 in the General Catalogue on. In Dreyer's New General Catalogue of 1888 he was given the number NGC 3242nd

RGB recording with a 80cm telescope

Recording in the mid-infrared, Spitzer Space Telescope

UV absorption with GALEX, a surrounding gas structure is discernible.