The visible inner filaments are ejected by a strong wind of particles from the central star.

NGC 2392 lies about 6500 light-years away, and is visible with a small telescope in the constellation of Gemini.

At the center of NGC 2392, there is an O-type star (designated HD 59088[7]) with a spectral type of O(H)6f.

He described it as "A star 9th magnitude with a pretty bright middle, nebulosity equally dispersed all around.

On 9 January 1982 it was occulted by the Moon during a Total Lunar Eclipse (the January 1982 lunar eclipse) over Greenland, the Arctic, the extreme northeast of North America, the northern half of Europe, North and Northeast Asia.