M97

The Owl Nebula M97 is one of the fainter objects in Messier's catalog, discovered by Pierre M??chain on February 16, 1781. Admiral William H. Smyth first classified it as planetary nebulae in 1844. The name "Owl Nebula" goes back to Lord Rosse, who first used it in 1848. In 1866, William Huggins recognized its nature as a gaseous nebula from the observation of its spectrum, where he discovered two spectral lines.