Eight-Burst Nebula (NGC 3132)
A bright planetary nebula in Vela, the shell of gas a dying star threw off. Gaia measures its central star, about 2,470 light-years away.
Planetary nebula in Vela. Magnitude 9.2.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 43° above the southern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 46° above the southern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 19 Feb, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 11.4° east of Suhail.
- 10x50 binoculars: Just detectable in binoculars from a dark site, as a faint smudge.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): A bright oval disc at 100x, with a star at its centre.
- A camera: Tiny on camera: it needs 2,000 mm or more of focal length on a tracking mount.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 30″, 1/62 of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Brightness: magnitude 9.2. Fainter than the faintest stars in Georgetown (4.3) and Lethem (6.0): binoculars or a telescope.
- Distance: 2,470 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 2,470 years ago.
- True size: 0.36 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 4 months.
Apparent size from OpenNGC (Mattia Verga), CC-BY-SA-4.0.
What it is made of
- Type
- Planetary nebula
What is in it, not measured:
- Ionised gas: thrown off by a dying star: hydrogen, helium, oxygen, nitrogen
- The hot exposed core: becoming a white dwarf
How we know: Distance from Gaia parallax of its central star: Gaia EDR3 parallax via SIMBAD (basic.plx_value, 2020yCat.1350....0G), distance = 1/parallax, retrieved 2026-10-21 (1.3198 +/- 0.0344 mas). True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0), commit 4e2398a2).
More deep-sky objects: Ghost of Jupiter (NGC 3242) · Statue of Liberty Nebula (NGC 3576) · Blue Planetary (NGC 3918) · Coalsack Nebula · Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359) · Seagull Nebula (IC 2177)