The Cat’s Eye Nebula (Caldwell 6, NGC 6543) is a planetary nebula in Draco. A planetary nebula is the remnant from a dead star. At the center of this nebula is a white dwarf, the naked core of a star roughly the size of our sun that has exhausted its fuel and is no longer undergoing fusion. As it gets to the end of its life, the star loses most of its outer layers and those become the nebula. The white dwarf, though no longer undergoing fusion is still very hot and ultraviolet light from it causes the gas in the nebula to glow.

This nebula is one of the more exotic looking planetary nebulae. The central core is incredibly bright and the fringe is very faint. Visually, it’s easy to see the center of the nebula in a telescope but the fringe is probably only accessible to imagers just because the glare from the center would mask the fringes.

The core of the nebula is quite complex, probably a sign of intense magnetic fields. The core is also so bright that it created its own diffraction spikes, something usually reserved for bright stars.

The nebula is a bit over 3,000 light years away.

The image is in the Foraxx palette, a way of combining narrowband data that approximates the broadband appearance (though the stars are RGB broadband stars). This was one of the more challenging images I’ve processed though also one of the more rewarding. For all the technical details, see astrobin.