The Saturn Nebula is a planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius. It appears as a greenish-yellowish hue in a small amateur telescope. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 7, 1782, using a telescope of his own design in the garden at his home in Datchet, England, and was one of his earliest discoveries in his sky survey. The nebula was originally a low-mass star that ejected its layers into space, forming the nebula. The central star is now a bright white dwarf star of apparent magnitude 11.5. The Saturn Nebula gets its name from its superficial resemblance to the planet Saturn with its rings nearly edge-on to the observer. It was so named by Lord Rosse in the 1840s, when telescopes had improved to the point that its Saturn-like shape could be discerned. William Henry Smyth said that the Saturn Nebula was one of Struve's nine "Rare Celestial Objects".
NGC 7009 by Very Large Telescope.
NGC 7009 by Hubble Space Telescope.
1848 drawing of NGC 7009 by Lord Rosse.
Image: NGC 7009 "Saturn Nebula"
A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.
NGC 1535
X-ray/optical composite image of the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543)
Two cameras aboard Webb Telescope captured the latest image of this planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 3132, and known informally as the Southern Ring Nebula. It is approximately 2,500 light-years away.
NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a binary central star
