NGC 1514

Right Ascension	04 : 09.2 (h:m)
Declination	+30 : 47 (deg:m)
Distance	(kly)
Visual brightness	10p (mag)
Apparent Dimension	1.9 (arc min)

William Herschel discovered this planetary nebula on November 13, 1790. The appearance of this object caused him to rethink his idea of planetary nebulae; he had formerly assumed that all nebulae are unresolved stellar agglomerations of some kind. He describes it in a paper, "On Nebulous Stars, Properly So Called", published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1791, as follows:

A most singular phenomenon! A star of about 8th magnitude with a faint luminous atmosphere, of circular form, and about 3 minutes in diameter. The star is perfectly in the centerm abd the atmosphere is so delicate, faint and equally throughout that there can be no surmise of its consisting of stars; nor can there be a doubt of the evident connection between the atmosphere and the star. Another star, not much less in brightness and in the sam field as the above, was perfectly free from any such appearance.

The image in this page was obtained by Martin Germano with a 14.5 inch telescope. Note it is copyrighted; please email Martin (mcgermano at earthlink.net) if you consider non-personal use.

.. more to come soon ..