The sky around Antares Nebula at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
Antares Nebula is a reflection nebula in Scorpius, 554 light-years away
Antares Nebula (vdB 107, LBN 1108, Ced 132, LBN 1107) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Scorpius, 554 light-years away. spans 3° of sky, about 29 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in July.
Nebula: a cloud of gas and dust. Emission nebulae glow on their own, lit by ultraviolet light from hot young stars; reflection nebulae shine by starlight scattered from dust; dark nebulae block the light behind them.
Antares Nebula is vdB 107 in the Van den Bergh catalog of reflection nebulae
Sidney van den Bergh listed it in his catalog of reflection nebulae (1966), drawn from the Palomar Sky Survey. He chose nebulae lit by a star bright enough to appear in the Bonner and Cordoba star catalogs. The star that lights it is Antares (Alpha Sco), HD 148478/148479, M1.5Iab-Ib+B4Ve, magnitude 1.1. He rated it moderate in brightness and very red in color.
Finding Antares Nebula from σ Sco
Antares Nebula lies 2.0° southeast of σ Sco, the magnitude 2.9 star. That is within one binocular field.
Antares Nebula is highest in the evening in July
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole southern hemisphere and north to about 64°N, and never sets south of 64°S.
Antares Nebula is 554 light-years away
The light seen from Antares Nebula tonight left it about 554 years ago, around 1472 AD. It ranks 23 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Hipparcos 2007 parallax via HYG v4.1 (HR 6134, illuminating star).
