The little constellation of Lyra is supposed to represent Apollo's harp. Six fainter stars form a little geometric pattern of a parallelogram attached at its northern corner to an equal-sided triangle. Vega gleams at the western part of the triangle.

The two lowest stars in the parallelogram are Beta and Gamma Lyrae. Beta is sometimes also known as Sheliak.

Between these two stars, but a trifle nearer to Gamma is where you will find the Ring Nebula. It shines at magnitude +8.8, and thus is far too faint to be seen with the unaided eye.

Any good pair of binoculars will locate it, though it will look almost starlike in appearance because of its small apparent diameter. The ring shape might just begin to become evident to most eyes in small telescopes using a magnification of 100-power, although at least a 6-inch telescope is recommended to see the ring clearly.

With larger instruments and higher magnifications, the ring appears distinctly as a "tiny ghostly doughnut."

The Ring Nebula is the most famous and among the brightest examples of what astronomers refer to as "planetary" nebulae. But despite their name, planetary nebulae have absolutely nothing to do with planets. It is simply because that generally they appear in telescopes not as stellar point sources, but as small diffuse disks, much like planet.

For a long time the explanation for the Ring Nebula's appearance was that the hazy disk was so much brighter around its edges that it looked like a ring; that we are looking through the rim of the gaseous shell lengthwise. Therefore, there is much more gas in our line of sight and the refraction of the light from the central star makes it more luminous, because each particle acts as a prism or mirror, and reflects the rays back to us.

More recent research, however, has confirmed that it indeed is likely a ring, or torus of bright material surrounding its central star. In fact, based on photographs taken from Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, some think that we might actually be looking down at a tunnel of gas shaped like a barrel or cylinder.

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