Tähtitieteellinen yhdistys Ursa

Syvä taivas

The Mystery of M57

M57, the Ring Nebula of Lyra. © Arto Oksanen.

During the Sagittarius Star Party held in Öland, southern Sweden, some Finnish amateurs noticed - for the first time in the world - a starlike dot inside M57's ring. The night after discovery it still was there and remained unmoved. So the chances were the object was really inside the ring.

In the next couple of years the dot was insistently in its location and looked exactly the same. You can try to see this feature yourself by using telescope of any size and high magnification. Try using averted vision and try to spot a stellar pinpoint jumping on and off. If you manage to do this you've succeeded. Make your observation during good seeing.

The photo attached here was taken by Arto Oksanen using the 2.5-meter telescope at the NOT observatory of La Palma, Canary Islands. An xtremely short exposure was used not to overexpose the inner details of the ring. You can use this photo as a finder chart in your quest to see this extremely difficult object. The object is located in the middle of left side of the ring.

Text: © Riku Henriksson, edited by Toni Veikkolainen.

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