Lemon Slice Nebula

IC 3568 is a planetary nebula that is 1.3 kiloparsecs (4500 ly) away from Earth in the constellation of Camelopardalis (just 7.5 degrees from Polaris). It is a relatively young nebula and has a core diameter of only about 0.4 light years. It was dubbed the Lemon Slice Nebula by Jim Kaler, due to its appearance in one false-colour image from the Hubble Space Telescope.[1][2] The Lemon slice nebula is one of the most simple nebulae known, with an almost perfectly spherical morphology. The core of the nebula does not have a distinctly visible structure in formation and is mostly composed of ionized helium.[3] A faint halo of interstellar dust surrounds the nebula.

IC 3568
Emission nebula
Planetary nebula
Image of IC 3568 based on HST data
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension12h 33m 06s
Declination+82° 34 00
DistanceRoughly 4.5⋅103 ly
Apparent magnitude (V)12.3
ConstellationCamelopardalis
Physical characteristics
RadiusCore: 0.2 ly
DesignationsIC 3568
False colour image of the bright central region of IC 3568. This is the image that gave the nebula its common name.

References

  1. IC 3568
  2. Portal to the Universe.org
  3. "starrycritters.com". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2013-07-29.
  • Media related to IC 3568 at Wikimedia Commons


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