The sky around LDN 1 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8, the Lynds bright and dark nebulae, and the NGC and IC objects in the field. The box marks a circle of the same area as the cloud; the cloud itself is irregular.
LDN 1 is a dark nebula in the constellation Ophiuchus. It covers 0.054 sq deg of sky, about the area of a circle 16′ across, and Lynds gave it opacity 3 of 6, faint. It is a faint cloud that shows best in wide-field photographs, and it is highest in the evening sky in July.
Dark nebula: a cold cloud of gas and dust, a few degrees above absolute zero, dense enough to block the light of the stars behind it. Dark clouds are where new stars form, and they show only by contrast against a rich star field.
Finding LDN 1 from Han
LDN 1 lies 5.9° south of Han, the magnitude 2.5 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
A dark nebula shows only by contrast, as a patch with fewer stars than the field around it. Use the lowest power and widest field you have, from a dark site with the Milky Way high in the sky; a nebula filter does not help, because there is no light from the cloud to pass.
LDN 1 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 74°N, and never sets south of 74°S.
The distance to LDN 1 is not well measured
No reliable distance has been measured for it yet.
10 Lynds bright nebulae and 21 Lynds dark nebulae lie within 5° of LDN 1
