Observations
The Nebula was discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786, who likened its appearance to a planetary disk. Cat's Eye was the first planetary nebula to be observed with a spectroscope. It was done by the pioneer spectroscopist William Huggins on August 29, 1864. Huggins' observations, which revealed that nebula's spectrum was non-continuous and made of a few bright lines, were the first indication that planetary nebulae consist of extremely rarefied gases. Since those early observations, NGC 6543 has been observed right across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Read more about this topic: Cat's Eye Nebula
Famous quotes containing the word observations:
“All observations point to the fact that the intellectual woman is masculinized; in her, warm, intuitive knowledge has yielded to cold unproductive thinking.”
—Helene Deutsch (1884–1982)
“Jerry: She’s one of those third-year girls that gripe my liver.
Milo: Third-year girls?
Jerry: Yeah, you know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture. They give me a swift pain.
Milo: Why?
Jerry: They’re officious and dull. They’re always making profound observations they’ve overheard.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled “a contemplative man’s recreation,” introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist’s observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man’s recreation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)