Crab Nebula

Object Type: Supernova Remnant
Scope: Orion 10" Newtonian; Exposure 30 minutes.

The Crab Nebula (Messier 1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is the best-known supernova remnant in the sky, the expanding debris of a star seen to explode in 1054 AD. Chinese and other astronomers recorded the "guest star" on 4 July 1054; at about magnitude -6 it briefly outshone Venus, stayed visible in daylight for 23 days, and remained a naked-eye object at night for nearly two years. John Bevis found the remnant telescopically in 1731, and Charles Messier rediscovered it in 1758, it became the first entry in his catalog. Lord Rosse's 1844 drawing gave it the "Crab" name. It glows at about magnitude 8.4 near the southern horn of Taurus. The cloud now spans roughly 11 light-years and is still expanding at about 1,500 km/s. At its heart is the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star only ~30 km across that spins more than 30 times a second, powering the nebula with roughly 100,000 times the Sun's output. Very-long-baseline measurements in 2023 place it about 6,200 light-years away, and the James Webb Space Telescope imaged it in infrared in 2023, mapping its dust and filaments in unprecedented detail.