Eta Carinae

RA 10:44; Dec -59:52 (Carina)
Distance: 9,000 ly The nearest star is 4 ly.
Type: emission
The Eta Carina Nebula is the largest diffuse nebula in the sky, much larger than the more famous Orion Nebula; that it is not better known is no doubt due to the fact that it is not visible from most of the Northern Hemisphere.
The star Eta Carinae itself is also interesting. It is a variable star; in the mid-19th century it was the second brightest star in the sky; today it is not even visible with the naked eye. It is an extremely large star (150 times the mass of the Sun and 4 million times brighter). Such large stars are very unstable. Eta Carinae's most recent outburst in 1841 expelled the gas that creates the spectacular nebula (sometimes called the Homunculus Nebula) that we see today. The bright lobes of the nebula are about the same size as our whole solar system.