M 76 Deep sky · Planetary nebula in Perseus · M 76 · NGC 650
Little Dumbbell Nebula
The Little Dumbbell: a small, faint copy of the Dumbbell Nebula in Perseus, and the only Messier object with two NGC numbers.
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- Type
- Planetary nebula
- Designations
- M 76 · NGC 650
- Constellation
- Perseus
- Apparent magnitude
- 10.1
- Apparent size
- 3′ × 2′
- Position (J2000)
- RA 01h 42m · Dec +51° 35′
The full Moon, about 31′ across, is 10 times as wide. The Sun comes no nearer to it than 38°, around early May, so it is never lost in the Sun’s glare, which reaches about 15° out.
When to see it
On the night of Thu 14 Oct 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | Never sets | 01:11 · 90° | — |
| New York EDT | Never sets | 01:06 · 79° | — |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:10 | 01:16 · 40° | 07:22 |
| Sydney GMT+11 | 23:01 | 01:07 · 4° | 03:14 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes, on any clear night of the year. From there it never sets: it is circumpolar, circling the pole and still 12° up at its lowest.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Only just. At its highest it is 3° above the northern horizon, so it needs a clear, flat view that way and clean air.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around mid October, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by mid January it is highest in the early evening, and in mid July not until the hours before dawn.
- How bright is it?
- Magnitude 10.1 in total, but that light is spread over 3′ × 2′ of sky: on average 20.9 magnitudes per square arcsecond. Against a dark country sky that average stands out; a city’s glow drowns all but its brightest parts.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- Binoculars. At magnitude 10.1 it is past the eye, but a 50 mm pair under a dark sky reaches about magnitude 11.0.
History
William Herschel saw its two bright lobes as two separate nebulae, so the New General Catalogue gave it two entries, NGC 650 and NGC 651.
Science
Like the Dumbbell it is a planetary nebula: the shed outer layers of a dying star, seen side-on as a bar with faint loops off each end.
Look for
From 50° north it is circumpolar and never sets; from 35° north it climbs to 73°; from the equator it climbs to 38°; from 35° south it barely clears the horizon, at 3°.
Look for
Magnitude 10.1 against the faintest star each can show: the eye under a city sky, 4.5 (5.6 short); the eye under a dark country sky, 7.0 (3.1 short); 50 mm binoculars under that dark sky, 11.0 (0.9 to spare); a 100 mm telescope there, 12.5 (2.4 to spare). Those limits are for a point of light; its light is spread over its whole size, so it needs some of that margin in hand. Through 7×50 binoculars, whose field is about 7.1° across, it is a speck under 1% of the field’s width; through a 100 mm telescope at 50×, a field about 1° across, it spans 5% of the field’s width.