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Gale’s Planetary Nebula
Gale’s Planetary Nebula, IC 5150
Walter Gale (1865-1945) was born in Sydney, NSW. On 4 June 1894 he discovered a large (2.2’ diameter) faint (mag 11.0) PN in Grus using an 8.5” refractor at Sydney Observatory.
The PN is 4170 light years away, according to Gaia, and sometimes called IC 5148 or the spare tyre. Its central star is mag 16.1. The PN is faint in my 10” Dob with a UHC filter.
A crater on Mars is named after Gale. In 2012 the rover Curiosity landed on Mars at the foot of the layered mountain inside Gale Crater.
This image of the PN is by Roger Gifkins. It was taken from Kemsey, NSW
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