Right ascension 12h 33m 06s Distance Roughly 4.5 kly ly Designations IC 3568 | Declination +82°34’00” Radius Core: 0.4 ly ly Magnitude 12.3 Apparent magnitude (V) 12.3 | |
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Similar NGC 1501, NGC 3918, NGC 6826, NGC 6210, IC 418 | ||
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. 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. The central star is a very hot and bright asymptotic red giant, and can be seen as a red-orange hue in an amateur's telescope. A faint halo of interstellar dust surrounds the nebula.
