Preparing AstroBrain

Loading your page…

Abell PN 30 – Planetary nebula in Cancer · AstroBrain

Abell PN 30

Set a site to see tonight's sky

When Abell PN 30 is up, how long it stays usable and when it is in season all depend on where you observe from. Set your site and this page adds tonight's answer and its year.

Set it on Tonight

The science

What you are looking at

In one sentence

The ionised gas shell an evolved, sun-like star sheds as it dies, lit by the exposed hot core left behind.

Class explainer for planetary nebula (SIMBAD classification).

The facts

Abell PN 30 is a planetary nebula in Cancer. SIMBAD gives its distance as 2,213.86 pc (−163.209 pc / +163.209 pc) — ≈ 7,220.64 ly, measured by parallax from 4 measurements. The light reaching us from it now left it about 7,221 years ago, around the end of the last ice age. On the sky it spans 2.1′ — 7% of the full Moon's width. At that distance, that angle means it is roughly 4 light-years across.

Sources: AstroBrain catalogue; Acker A. et al. 1992, Strasbourg–ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae, ESO, via CDS/VizieR V/84; CDS/SIMBAD astronomical database, Strasbourg (SIMBAD record PN A66 30 · distance from 2020yCat.1350....0G). Contains information from SIMBAD, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL). Download the SIMBAD-derived data.

For scale

Angular size, as it would sit on your sky.

4 ly

across — 1× the distance from the Sun to its nearest neighbour star (4.37 ly).

The same patch of sky in visible light

Sky image
Observatory photos and open-licence sky surveys.
Credits on each image.

Neighbours in the sky

Beehive Cluster2.4° away

Sky maths: apparent positions with refraction, one-minute steps; usable = full astronomical dark, at least 30° up and clear of your skyline. Survey images: CDS, Strasbourg (DSS2 and other surveys). Science: SIMBAD. The hours, heights and Moon on this page use no weather forecast; the rank is this target’s place in the Targets list, whose score also counts the cloud forecast when there is one.

Loading…