History

The planetary nebula NGC 3132 was discovered on 2 March 1835 by John Herschel during his survey of the southern sky at Wynberg in Cape Town, South Africa. He listed it as h 3228 and recorded four observations. Notes from his first observation: «Planetary nebula, very large, very bright, elliptic; has in it a 9th mag star somewhat excentric. Its light is exactly equable, i. e. not increasing towards the middle; yet I cannot help imagining it to be closely dotted. It is just like a star out of focus in certain states of the mirror and atmosphere. Three stars near, a = 9 m; b = 9 m; c = 14 m; A very extraordinary object.» ^[11]

The nickname «Eight Burst Nebula» probably originates from Shapley's and Paraskevopoulos' publication «Galactic and Extragalactic Studies, III. Photographs of Thirty Southern Nebulae and Clusters» There they wrote about NGC 3132: «A series of photographs of varying exposures would be necessary to bring out the intricate details of the bright planetary NGC 3132 = HD 87877. It could well be named the '8-burst' planetary from the number of distinct arcs on the boundary of the main disc or shell.» ^[733] Another common nickname is «Southern Ring Nebula» as counterpart to Messier 57 on the northern celestial hemisphere.