The sky around vdB 55 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 55 is a reflection nebula in Orion, 1,360 light-years away
vdB 55 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion, 1,360 light-years away. spans 3.6′ of sky, about 1.4 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in February.
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 55 is vdB 55 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 38023, B5III, magnitude 8.9. He rated it faint in brightness and moderately blue in color.
Finding vdB 55 from Saiph
vdB 55 lies 2.0° northwest of Saiph, the magnitude 2.1 star. That is within one binocular field.
vdB 55 is highest in the evening in February
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 82°N.
vdB 55 is 1,360 light-years away
The light seen from vdB 55 tonight left it about 1,360 years ago, around 666 AD. It ranks 74 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (417 pc).
