Saturn Nebula

The Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius. It has an apparent magnitude of 8.30 mag and a diameter of 0.5 '× 0.4 '. He was discovered on September 7, 1782 by William Herschel, the name Saturn fog he received from Lord Rosse, because the shape of the side jets issuing from him reminiscent of Saturn's rings.

Its distance is 2,400 light-years (according to Hynes ), about 2,900 ly (according to Sky Catalogue) and 3,900 ly (according to Burnham Adopts O'Dell ).

Visual observation

The Saturn Nebula NGC 7009 is already in small scopes from 60 mm opening to recognize them as stellar object. In a larger telescope with about 10 " opening NGC 7009 is already very noticeable, even though both the structures and the two jets are observed extremely difficult and only under the best conditions. The image on the left shows that the Saturn Nebula is quite along with his two jets in the photographic coverage of an inexpensive amateur equipment.