NGC 2371, planetary nebula

Planetary Nebula NGC 2371 and NGC 2372 in Gemini

Planetary Neb NGC 2371
CCD image taken with a ST-6 CCD camera thru Kopernik’s 20 inch F/8 telescope. The exposure was 7 minutes. The field of view is approximately 5x7 arc minutes.

Description in The Deep Sky Field Guide to Uranometria 2000:

Irregular disk with very irregular brightness distribution involved in a larger and fainter halo of nebulosity, anomalous in form. Two brighter knots involved. Central star magnitude = 14.80.

NGC 2371 - NGC 2372 was discovered in the 18th Century by William Herschel, and first identified as a planetary nebula by Pease in 1917. It has an obvious bipolar appearance. Note the pair of very faint "polar caps" to the upper left and lower right which represent polar outflows, probably due to stellar winds constrained by an equatorial torus. Our exposure is too short to show the polar caps very well. A picture of this nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope can be found on this page, and another fine image taken by the Japanese SUBARU telescope can be found here.

Planetary Nebulae: To learn more about them, click here.

NGC 2371 (& NGC 2372) (Other ID: PK 189+19.1)
Magnitude: 13.0
Constellation: Gemini
RA: 07h 25m 36.0s
Dec: +29° 29' 00" Epoch 2000
Size (sec) 55"
Classification: planetary nebula

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George Normandin, KAS

February 10th, 2001