Ring Nebula (M57)

The Ring Nebula is visible as a small, faint gray smoke-ring through even a 4-inch (100mm) aperture telescope under reasonably dark skies. An 8-inch or larger telescope will reveal more structural detail, including the ring's darker central cavity, though the central white dwarf star is challenging and typically requires at least a 16-inch scope to spot visually.

The Ring Nebula is best observed during the summer months, roughly June through September, when the constellation Lyra rides high overhead in the Northern Hemisphere night sky. It is located roughly halfway between the stars Sheliak and Sulafat, the two brightest stars forming the bottom of Lyra's parallelogram, making it relatively easy to locate with a finderscope.

The Ring Nebula was formed when a dying Sun-like star shed its outer layers into space, creating the glowing shell of ionized gas we see today while the star's collapsed core remains as a white dwarf at the center. The nebula is located approximately 2,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

The Ring Nebula was discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in January 1779 while he was observing a comet passing through the constellation Lyra. Charles Messier independently observed it shortly afterward the same month and added it to his famous catalog as entry number 57, helping to establish it as one of the most studied planetary nebulae in astronomy.