Planetary nebula
Blinking Planetary (NGC6826)
In Cygnus (Cyg) • Magnitude 9.4 • 0.4 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Blinking Planetary pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A planetary nebula in Cygnus that appears to blink in and out under averted vision.
Blinking Planetary at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 6826 |
| Type | Planetary nebula |
| Constellation | Cygnus (Cyg) |
| Right ascension | 19h 44m 48s |
| Declination | +50° 31' 30" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.40 |
| Surface brightness | 16.1 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 0.4 × 0.4 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 84° |
| Best imaging months | Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep |
How to image Blinking Planetary
Blinking Planetary sits in the constellation Cygnus at right ascension 19h 44m 48s and declination +50° 31' 30". 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, Blinking Planetary typically appears small and intense, so a long focal length and OIII or Ha narrowband filters bring out structure.