All 349 Barnard dark nebulae by constellation, size and distance
In catalog order. Sort any column, or type a name or constellation; the size buttons above the map also filter the table. Size is Barnard's own estimate of the diameter. 9 of the objects have their own page elsewhere on Go Astronomy; those link to that page. LDN is the number in the Lynds catalog of dark nebulae.
A dark nebula is a cloud of dust seen against the stars behind it
Dark nebulae are cold clouds of gas and dust, a few degrees above absolute zero, dense enough to block the light of the Milky Way's stars behind them. They are the places where new stars form: the youngest stars are still buried inside them and show only in infrared light. Barnard at first could not tell whether the dark patches on his photographs were holes in the star clouds or something in front of them. By the time of his catalog he was convinced that most were obscuring clouds.
23 Barnard objects have a common name
- Barnard 18 Kutner's Cloud, in Taurus, 1° across
- Barnard 22 Taurus Dark Cloud, in Taurus, 2° across
- Barnard 33 Horsehead Nebula, in Orion, 4′ across
- Barnard 59 Pipe Nebula, in Ophiuchus, 1° across
- Barnard 65 Pipe Nebula (stem), in Ophiuchus, 12′ across
- Barnard 66 Pipe Nebula (stem), in Ophiuchus, 8′ across
- Barnard 67 Pipe Nebula (stem), in Ophiuchus
- Barnard 72 Snake Nebula, in Ophiuchus
- Barnard 77 Pipe Nebula, in Ophiuchus, 1° across
- Barnard 78 Pipe Nebula, in Ophiuchus, 3° across
- Barnard 86 Inkspot Nebula, in Sagittarius, 5′ across
- Barnard 87 Parrot's Head Nebula, in Sagittarius
- Barnard 92 Black Hole Nebula, in Sagittarius, 12′ across
- Barnard 93 Black Spot Nebula, in Sagittarius, 2′ across
- Barnard 138 Black Lizard Nebula, in Aquila, 3° across
- Barnard 142 E Nebula, in Aquila, 40′ across
- Barnard 143 E Nebula, in Aquila, 30′ across
- Barnard 144 Fish on the Platter Nebula, in Cygnus, 4.5° across
- Barnard 150 Seahorse Nebula, in Cepheus, 1° across
- Barnard 218 Northern Streamer, in Taurus, 15′ across
- Barnard 228 Dark Wolf Nebula, in Lupus, 4° across
- Barnard 252 Dolphin Nebula, in Scorpius, 20′ across
- Barnard 348 Northern Coalsack, in Cygnus, 1° across
82% of the Barnard objects lie within 10° of the Milky Way's plane; 180 are in Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, Scorpius and Scutum
A dark nebula can only be seen against a rich star field, so Barnard found them along the Milky Way, and most of all toward its bright center. The most lie in Ophiuchus (64), Sagittarius (41), Scutum (40), Aquila (38), Scorpius (35), Cygnus (31). The Pipe Nebula and the Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus, the Taurus clouds and the dark lanes of Cygnus are the largest groups.
The largest Barnard objects are best in binoculars or with the naked eye
A dark nebula is seen by contrast, so it needs a dark sky and a field wider than the cloud. The largest are Barnard 44 (10°), Barnard 144 Fish on the Platter Nebula (4.5°), Barnard 228 Dark Wolf Nebula (4°), Barnard 78 Pipe Nebula (3°), Barnard 138 Black Lizard Nebula (3°), Barnard 37 (2.9°), Barnard 22 Taurus Dark Cloud (2°), Barnard 36 (2°). Small ones, such as Barnard 86, the Ink Spot, are good targets for a low-power eyepiece in a small telescope. Nebula filters do not help: there is no light from the cloud to pass.
The nearest Barnard object with a measured distance is Barnard 207, 420 light-years away
Each dot is one cloud, on a scale where each step is ten times farther. Most distances are for the cloud complex an object belongs to, measured from how the starlight behind it is dimmed in Gaia data. 85 of the 349 have one. The farthest is Barnard 312, 6,720 light-years away.
E. E. Barnard photographed the Milky Way with a wide-field camera from 1889 to 1923
Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923) worked at Lick Observatory and then Yerkes Observatory. With portrait lenses and the 10-inch Bruce telescope, a wide-field camera, he made long exposures of the Milky Way at Lick, Yerkes and, in 1905, Mount Wilson. In 1919 he published a list of 182 dark markings in the Astrophysical Journal. The full catalog of 349, with the photographs, appeared after his death as A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way (1927), edited by Edwin Frost and Mary Calvert.