the crab nebula is located roughly 1. 5 degrees away in the sky.
where is the crab nebula located in the sky?
roughly 1. 5 degrees away
the crab nebula was first identified in 1731 by john bevis. the nebula was independently rediscovered in 1758 by charles messier as he was observing a bright comet. messier catalogued it as the first entry in his catalogue of comet-like objects; in 1757, alexis clairaut reexamined the calculations of edmund halley and predicted the return of halley's comet in late 1758. the exact time of the comet's return required the consideration of perturbations to its orbit caused by planets in the solar system such as jupiter, which clairaut and his two colleagues jérôme lalande and nicole-reine lepaute carried out more precisely than halley, finding that the comet should appear in the constellation of taurus. it is in searching in vain for the comet that charles messier found the crab nebula, which he at first thought to be halley's comet. after some observation, noticing that the object that he was observing was not moving across the sky, messier concluded that the object was not a comet. messier then realised the usefulness of compiling a catalogue of celestial objects of a cloudy nature, but fixed in the sky, to avoid incorrectly cataloguing them as comets.
crab nebula
southern crab nebula





















































the southern crab nebula or hen 2-104 is a nebula in the constellation centaurus. the nebula is several thousand light years from earth, and its central star is a symbiotic mira variable - white dwarf pair. it is named for its resemblance to the crab nebula, which is in the northern sky.





















































the nebula had already been observed using earth-based telescopes, but images taken with the hubble space telescope (shown) in 1999 have provided much more detail, revealing that at the center of the nebula are a pair of stars, a red giant and a white dwarf.
southern crab nebula