The Minkowski 2-51 Planetary Nebula (also designated as M 2-51 or PN G103.2+00.6) is a faint planetary nebula located roughly 6,300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. Discovered in 1947 by the German-American astronomer Rudolph Minkowski using objective-prism survey plates at Mount Wilson, the nebula represents the expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas expelled by an aging, low- to intermediate-mass star entering its final evolutionary stages. Sometimes informally nicknamed the "Little Ring Nebula," it measures under 1 arcminute in angular size (around 39 to 56 arcseconds) and shines dimly at an optical magnitude of approximately 13.5.
The Minkowski 2-51 Planetary Nebula (also designated as M 2-51 or PN G103.2+00.6) is a faint planetary nebula located roughly 6,300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. Discovered in 1947 by the German-American astronomer Rudolph Minkowski using objective-prism survey plates at Mount Wilson, the nebula represents the expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas expelled by an aging, low- to intermediate-mass star entering its final evolutionary stages. Sometimes informally nicknamed the "Little Ring Nebula," it measures under 1 arcminute in angular size (around 39 to 56 arcseconds) and shines dimly at an optical magnitude of approximately 13.5.