A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - planetary nebula in Draco observed in 1863

Sir, I beg to call attention of your readers to Herschel’s planetary nebula No.37 in Draco, situated between Zeta and Delta of the that constellation, and close to the pole of the Ecliptic.

I was looking at the nebula a few nights ago with my reflector of 12-inch aperture, having silvered glass specula, and perceived very near to its centre and deeply immersed in the pale blue nebulosity, a small star of the tenth magnitude or thereabouts.

On referring to Admiral Smyth’s ‘Cycle’ I have found he describes the nebula as a “bright pale blue object” but makes no reference to any star. I have not the means of knowing in what manner it was described by Sr. W Herschel, its discoverer; but it would be singular if the star was then as visible as it is now, but he should have missed it. I see it best with a power of 110, and the largest possible aperture.

I hope this may meet an eye of some of your numerous readers, who may possess instruments of great calibre so as to verify my observation and detect any peculiarity in the object which my instrument will not reveal, and not hitherto observed.

Frederick Bird

Key Hill, Hockley, Birmingham

July 16^th 1863

 

This object is NGC 6543 the Cat’s Eye Nebula a planetary nebula which does have an 11^th magnitude central star inside a bright luminous ring that is surrounded by a diffuse shell of pale light.

NGC 6543 was the first object of its kind to be analysed with a spectroscope by William Huggins at Tulse Hill Observatory in London on August 29^th 1864.

NGC is the New General Catalogue of nebula and clusters that was introduced in 1888.

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