Eskimo Nebula
What is Eskimo Nebula?
Nebulae· Distance 2,900 ly. A small planetary nebula resembling a face inside a fur-lined hood: the bright inner disk is the face, the comet-tail filaments outside are the fur. South of Pollux in Gemini, it is bright enough that a small telescope shows a blue-green disk.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Eskimo Nebula is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=eskimo nebula — location and time set automatically, no login.
Its place in the sky
A nebula, in the direction of Gemini, spanning about 0.8 arcminutes of sky — 0 times the width of the full Moon.
Distance and scale
| Distance | ~2,900 ly |
|---|---|
| Size | ~0.7 ly across |
| Type | planetary nebula |
| Constellation | Gemini |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Discovery and name
Found by Herschel in 1787; named for its fur-hooded face, also called the Clown Face.
Frequently asked
- How far is Eskimo Nebula from Earth?
- ~2,900 ly.
- What kind of object is Eskimo Nebula?
- planetary nebula.
- Where in the sky is Eskimo Nebula?
- In the direction of Gemini.
- Where is Eskimo Nebula in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The naming debate — NGC 2392
This nebula was long called the Eskimo, but in 2020 NASA stopped using the nickname in its official material. "Eskimo" is a name given to Arctic peoples from outside and one they do not want, and the "Siamese Twins" galaxies were dropped for the same reason. The catalogue number NGC 2392 became the standard form, while other nicknames such as the Lion or Clownface remain informal.
Most nicknames for celestial objects come from impressions of their photographs and have no official standing. The International Astronomical Union fixes only numbers and coordinates, so nicknames change by the consensus of those who use them. This index keeps the name people search for and shows the catalogue number beside it. The nebula itself remains, name aside, the brightest planetary nebula displaying the two-shell structure of a star that began shedding its envelope ten thousand years ago.
The nebula in depth
The Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392) is a planetary nebula about 2,900 light-years away in Gemini. William Herschel found it in 1787, and 20th-century photographs suggested a face wrapped in a fur-lined hood, giving it the nickname; the neutral name "Lion Nebula" is also used today. It is about 0.7 light-years wide and formed roughly ten thousand years ago.
The structure has two layers. The inner disk is hot gas rushing from the central star at 150 km/s, while the outer ring is fringed with comet-shaped filaments up to a light-year long. Those filaments are gas the star shed slowly as a red giant, later sculpted by its faster wind. The central star, at 10th magnitude, is bright for a planetary nebula and burns at about 40,000 K.
In the Sky view, drop south from Pollux in Gemini to the region near Delta Geminorum (Wasat) on winter and early-spring evenings. As a 9th-magnitude disk it looks star-like in binoculars, but a 10-cm telescope at high power shows a blue-green disk with its bright central star, and under dark skies the two-layer structure can be told apart.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.