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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 7:18 
Transit: 12:14 
Sunset: 17:11
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All Constellations »  Hydra »  Deep Sky Objects » 

NGC 3242 (Jupiter's Ghost Nebula) - Planetary Nebula in Hydra

Above the horizon.  Rise: 20:31 | Tran: 0:52 | Set: 5:10
Alt: 9.31°   Az: 223.16°   Direction: South-West

NGC 3242 is a Planetary Nebula in the Hydra constellation. NGC 3242 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year. Given its visual magnitude of 7.7, NGC 3242 is visible with the help of a binocular with a 40-50mm aperture or a small telescope.

The image below is a photograph of NGC 3242 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5000x0.5000 degrees (30.00x30.00 arcmins).

Image of NGC 3242 (Jupiter's Ghost Nebula) - Planetary Nebula in Hydra star
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DSS2 image of NGC 3242 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (0.42 arcmin) and minor (0.42 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

10h 25m 58s
-18° 46’ 13”
03h 01m 54s
13h 27m 53s

J2000

10h 24m 46s
-18° 38’ 31”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of NGC 3242 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for NGC 3242 (Jupiter's Ghost Nebula) - Planetary Nebula in Hydra.

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Finder chart for NGC 3242 (Jupiter's Ghost Nebula) - Planetary Nebula in Hydra.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of NGC 3242 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

8.6
7.7
12.1
12.46
11.75

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

Apparent Size

The following table reports NGC 3242 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of NGC 3242 is a visual representation of it.
0.42 arcmin
0.42 arcmin

Rise and Set Times

Location: Greenwich, UK
Latitude: 51° 28’ 47” N
Longitude: 0° 00’ 00” E
Timezone: Europe/London

Today's NGC 3242 (Jupiter's Ghost Nebula) - Planetary Nebula in Hydra rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 108.8°
Max altitude: 19.7°
Azimuth: 251.2°