Planetary nebula
Skull Nebula (NGC246)
In Cetus (Cet) • Magnitude 10.9 • 4.1 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Skull Nebula pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A faint planetary nebula in Cetus with a skull-like profile.
Skull Nebula at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 246 |
| Type | Planetary nebula |
| Constellation | Cetus (Cet) |
| Right ascension | 00h 47m 03s |
| Declination | -11° 52' 19" |
| Apparent magnitude | 10.90 |
| Surface brightness | 22.6 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 4.1 × 4.1 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 33° |
| Best imaging months | Sep, Oct, Nov |
How to image Skull Nebula
Skull Nebula sits in the constellation Cetus at right ascension 00h 47m 03s and declination -11° 52' 19". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a planetary nebula, Skull Nebula typically appears small and intense, so a long focal length and OIII or Ha narrowband filters bring out structure.