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20 Euros Cat's Eye Nebula
| Issuer | Austrian Mint (Münze Österreich) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2026 |
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| Orientation | Medal alignment ↑↑ |
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| Reverse description | The reverse displays a full-colour photographic interpretation of the Cat's Eye Nebula, printed directly onto the coin's surface using a specialised colour application technique. The vivid rendering reproduces the characteristic concentric shells of ionised gas in hues of blue, green, and red, surrounding a bright central stellar remnant, faithfully echoing imagery captured by space-based observatories. The legend KATZENAUGENNEBEL (Cat's Eye Nebula in German) is inscribed across the reverse field, identifying the subject of the design. |
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| Mintage | 2026 - Proof - 30,000 |
| Additional information |
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) was among the first objects examined spectroscopically by William Huggins in 1864, confirming that nebulae could consist of luminous gas rather than unresolved stars — a result that fundamentally redirected nineteenth-century astronomy. Austria's ongoing "Beauties of the Universe" silver program has drawn consistently from objects with strong observational histories, and NGC 6543 fits that pattern precisely. Hubble imaging in the 1990s revealed its concentric shell structure to be far more complex than ground-based observation had suggested, with at least eleven nested rings of expelled stellar material.