The sky around vdB 41 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 41 is a reflection nebula in Taurus, 678 light-years away
vdB 41 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Taurus, 678 light-years away. spans 2.4′ of sky, about 0.5 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in January.
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 41 is vdB 41 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 HD 244068, F4V, magnitude 10.1. He rated it very faint in brightness and moderately blue in color.
Finding vdB 41 from Elnath
vdB 41 lies 5.0° south of Elnath, the magnitude 1.6 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
vdB 41 is highest in the evening in January
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 66°S, and never sets north of 66°N.
vdB 41 is 678 light-years away
The light seen from vdB 41 tonight left it about 678 years ago, around 1348 AD. It ranks 27 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (208 pc).
