During a smoky and stormy summer it can be hard to find a decent night at the telescope. This night the moon was low in the southern sky and my target was high in the northern sky so the best area I could work with. The Cat’s Eye Nebula is small and not very bright so even with almost three hours of 300 second subs it was difficult to pull out of the noise, but it is there. A very interesting target for those with better gear than I run. Perhaps one day….
From the Web:
“The Cat’s Eye Nebula (also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature.”
