The nebula is several thousand light years from Earth, and its central star is a symbiotic Mira variable - white dwarf pair.

The Southern Crab was noted in a 1967 catalog, and was also observed using a CCD imager with the 2.2 meter telescope at the La Sila observatory in 1989.

In 1999, it was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2,[5] noted for its unique "stair-step" crop and for such astrophotos as the Pillars of Creation.

[7] The designation He2-104 (or Hen 2-104) comes from the Henize catalog of 1967, Observations of Southern Planetary Nebulae.

[11] The study used imaging and spectroscopic data from space and Earth-surface telescopes including Hubble and VLT observatories.