Planetary nebula in Perseus
Little Dumbbell (M76)
Among the faintest things in the catalogue: a smaller, dimmer M27 with the same two lobes, wanting a filter, a dark night and some stubbornness — which is also a fair description of the reward.
It is also one of only four planetary nebulae in the whole catalogue, and the shape is genuinely a barrel seen side-on rather than the two-lobed thing it appears — the faint outer loops that complete it are beyond most amateur reach. Perhaps three thousand years old, and around two light-years across.
- Catalogue
- M76
- Type
- Planetary nebula
- Constellation
- Perseus
- Distance
- 2,500 light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- 10.1
- Surface brightness
- 20.7 mag/□″
- Apparent size
- 3′ × 2′
- Right ascension
- 1h 42m
- Declination
- +51.57°
- Found by
- Pierre Méchain, 1780
Small enough that its 10.1 magnitudes arrive concentrated rather than smeared: 20.7 per square arcsecond, which is why it stands out from the sky better than its brightness alone suggests. Why surface brightness is the number that matters.
Could you see it?
Straightforward with 10×50 binoculars from Bortle 4.
| Sky | Eye | 10×50 | 80mm | 130mm | 200mm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1 21.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 2 21.7 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 3 21.4 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 4 20.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 5 20.3 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| Bortle 6 19.3 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| Bortle 7 18.6 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 8 18.1 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 9 17.8 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
At the eyepiece
The faint end of what a small telescope can do. At 150mm it is a small grey rectangle; the two lobes separate at 200mm, and an OIII filter helps more here than almost anywhere else on the list. A genuine test object, and satisfying for exactly that reason.
When, and from where
Highest in the middle of the night in October. Well placed for the northern hemisphere and overhead for anyone near 52°N. South of 38°S it stays below the horizon.
| Latitude | Highest it gets | |
|---|---|---|
| 60°N Oslo, Anchorage | 82° | Never sets |
| 51°N London, Calgary | 89° | Never sets |
| 40°N New York, Madrid | 78° | Never sets |
| 30°N Cairo, Houston | 68° | |
| 0°N the equator | 38° | |
| 33°S Sydney, Cape Town | 5° | Low — in the murk |
Nearby in the sky
The whole catalogue →Nothing else in the catalogue is especially close; the nearest is 9.2° apart, which is a separate trip rather than a nudge of the tube. Everything below is measured from M76 itself, not from the middle of Perseus.
- M103 Open cluster 9.2° apart Cassiopeia · magnitude 7.4 · binoculars from Bortle 9 or darker
- M34 Open cluster 13° apart Perseus · magnitude 5.5 · binoculars from Bortle 9 or darker
- M110 Galaxy 14° apart Andromeda · magnitude 8.5 · binoculars from Bortle 3 or darker
- M31 Andromeda Galaxy 15° apart Andromeda · magnitude 3.4 · binoculars from Bortle 4 or darker
One of 110. Positions J2000; the sky is the final authority.