The sky around vdB 130 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.
vdB 130 is a reflection nebula in Cygnus, 3,960 light-years away
vdB 130 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Cygnus, 3,960 light-years away. spans 2.4′ of sky, about 2.8 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in September.
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.
vdB 130 is vdB 130 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 BD+38 3993, B, magnitude 9.5. He rated it bright in brightness and red in color.
Finding vdB 130 from Sadr
vdB 130 lies 1.2° southwest of Sadr, the magnitude 2.2 star. That is within one binocular field.
vdB 130 is highest in the evening in September
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 northern hemisphere and south to about 51°S, and never sets north of 51°N.
vdB 130 is 3,960 light-years away
The light seen from vdB 130 tonight left it about 3,960 years ago. It ranks 135 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Cygnus X, Gaia DR2 dust, Zucker et al. 2020 (median of 13 sightlines, 761 to 1622 pc).
