<Tr> <Th> Designations </Th> <Td> Messier 1, NGC 1952, Taurus A, Sh 2 - 244 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> See also: Lists of nebulae </Td> </Tr> <P> The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M 1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus . The now - current name is due to William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1840 using a 36 - inch telescope and produced a drawing that looked somewhat like a crab . Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731 . The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion . </P> <P> At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions . The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 2.0 kiloparsecs (6,500 ly) from Earth . It has a diameter of 3.4 parsecs (11 ly), corresponding to an apparent diameter of some 7 arcminutes, and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi / s), or 0.5% of the speed of light . </P>

Where is the crab nebula located in the sky