The sky around Pipe Nebula (bowl) 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.
Pipe Nebula (bowl) is a dark nebula in Ophiuchus, 530 light-years away
Pipe Nebula (bowl), LDN 42, Barnard 78, is a dark nebula in the constellation Ophiuchus, 530 light-years away. It covers 1.45 sq deg of sky, about the area of a circle 1.4° across, or 12.6 light-years at its distance, and Lynds gave it opacity 4 of 6, dark. It is part of the Dark Horse Nebula. It is dark and large enough to show as a starless patch in binoculars from a dark site, and it is highest in the evening sky in August.
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 Pipe Nebula (bowl) from θ Oph
Pipe Nebula (bowl) lies 2.6° east of θ Oph, the magnitude 3.3 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.
Pipe Nebula (bowl) is highest in the evening in August
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.
Pipe Nebula (bowl) is 530 light-years away
The light seen from Pipe Nebula (bowl) tonight left it about 530 years ago, around 1496 AD. Distance source: Pipe/B59 Gaia DR2, Dzib et al. 2018 (163 pc).
6 Lynds bright nebulae and 89 Lynds dark nebulae lie within 5° of Pipe Nebula (bowl)
