101 Must-See Cosmic Objects: The Little Dumbbell Nebula

While Perseus is best noted for its wealth of clusters, including the famous Double Cluster, it also harbors the exotic and diminutive beauty M76 — one of only four planetary nebulae in Charles Messier’s catalog. Commonly known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, this expanding shell of gas from a dying Sun-like star resembles Vulpecula’s Dumbbell Nebula (M27) in shape, but not in brightness or size. 10th-magnitude M76 is three magnitudes fainter and three times smaller than M27 &md