Lynds Bright Nebulae: the LBN Catalog

Find a Lynds bright nebula by LBN number

Every LBN number has a page with a chart of the sky around it, a finder chart, when it is best seen and its catalog data. Nebulae that are also Messier, Caldwell, Sharpless or other catalog objects open that object's page.

Lynds put 72 nebulae in brightness class 1, the brightest

Largest first. These are the nebulae to try first visually; the emission nebulae among them show better with a nebula filter. Bright is the Lynds brightness class. Sort any column, or type a name; the buttons above the map also filter the table.

70% of the Lynds bright nebulae are emission nebulae

Lynds judged brightness by eye on the Sky Survey prints, from 1, the brightest, to 6, the faintest. It is a photographic rating, not a magnitude, and only a few of the brightest nebulae have a measured visual magnitude. Her color class, from 1 to 4, compared the nebula on the blue and the red print. Reflection nebulae, dust lit by starlight, are strongest on the blue print; emission nebulae, gas glowing in the red light of hydrogen, are strongest on the red. The catalog holds 787 emission nebulae, 199 reflection nebulae and 139 mixed emission and reflection nebulae.

88 Lynds nebulae have a common name

• LBN 25 Lagoon Nebula, Hourglass Nebula
• LBN 27 Trifid Nebula
• LBN 28 Chinese Dragon Nebula
• LBN 60 Omega Nebula, Swan Nebula
• LBN 67 Eagle Nebula, Star Queen Nebula
• LBN 129 Little Cocoon Nebula
• LBN 168 Tulip Nebula, Cygnus Star Cloud
• LBN 191 Veil Nebula, Cirrus Nebula
• LBN 203 Crescent Nebula, Dividing Cell Nebula
• LBN 234 Sadr Region
• LBN 328 Forsaken Nebula
• LBN 347 Flying Dragon Nebula
• LBN 350 Pelican Nebula
• LBN 353 Pelican Nebula
• LBN 373 North America Nebula, North America and Pelican Nebula
• LBN 414 Tick Nebula, Flea Nebula
• LBN 424 Cocoon Nebula
• LBN 437 Gecko Nebula
• LBN 451 Elephant's Trunk Nebula
• LBN 452 Elephant's Trunk Nebula
• LBN 473 Lion Nebula
• LBN 487 Iris Nebula
• LBN 497 Cosmic Rosebud
• LBN 511 The Wizard Nebula, Wizard Nebula
• LBN 529 Cave Nebula
• LBN 531 Wolf's Cave Nebula
• LBN 537 Lobster Claw Nebula, Californietto Nebula
• LBN 542 Northern Lagoon Nebula, Brain Nebula
• LBN 543 Northern Lagoon Nebula, Brain Nebula
• LBN 548 Bubble Nebula
• LBN 577 Little Rosette Nebula
• LBN 589 Question Mark Nebula
• LBN 593 The Phantom Of The Opera Nebula
• LBN 598 Valentine Rose Nebula
• LBN 616 Pacman Nebula, Pac-Man Nebula
• LBN 622 Gamma Cassiopeia Nebula, Ghost of Cassiopeia
• LBN 623 Gamma Cassiopeia Nebula, Ghost of Cassiopeia
• LBN 633 Shrimp Nebula, Firefox Nebula
• LBN 645 Fish Head Nebula, Fish Nebula
• LBN 654 Heart Nebula, The Running Dog Nebula
• LBN 667 Soul Nebula, Embryo Nebula
• LBN 704 Fossil Footprint Nebula
• LBN 706 Fossil Footprint Nebula
• LBN 717 Tribble Nebulae
• LBN 722 Tribble Nebulae
• LBN 741 Embryo Nebula, Phantom Tiara
• LBN 744 Second Closest Planetary
• LBN 756 California Nebula, Dragon Nebula
• LBN 758 Omicron Persei Cloud
• LBN 767 Northern Trifid Nebula, Northern Trifid
• LBN 771 Maia Nebula
• LBN 777 Vulture Head Nebula, Baby Eagle Nebula
• LBN 795 Flaming Star Nebula, Schaeberle's Flaming Star
• LBN 804 Spider Nebula
• LBN 807 The Tadpoles
• LBN 810 Fly Nebula, The Fly Nebula
• LBN 813 Little Flame Nebula
• LBN 817 Struve's Lost Nebula, Struve's Nebula
• LBN 822 Spaghetti Nebula, Simeis 147
• LBN 833 Crab Nebula, Taurus A
• LBN 839 Fishhook Nebula, Eridanus Loop
• LBN 844 Jellyfish Nebula, Gemini A
• LBN 854 Monkey Head Nebula
• LBN 863 Lower's Nebula
• LBN 903 Dreyer's Nebula
• LBN 911 Cone Nebula, Fox Fur Nebula
• LBN 913 Teardrop Nebula
• LBN 916 Cosmic Bat Nebula, Foxface Nebula
• LBN 920 Hubble's Variable Nebula, Hubble's Nebula
• LBN 948 Rosette Nebula, Skull Nebula
• LBN 949 Rosette Nebula, Skull Nebula
• LBN 953 Flame Nebula, Flaming Tree Nebula
• LBN 959 Witch Head Nebula
• LBN 974 Orion Nebula, Great Orion Nebula
• LBN 977 The Lost Jewel of Orion, Lower Sword
• LBN 979 13th Pearl Nebula, Rubber Stamp Nebula
• LBN 994 Angel Nebula
• LBN 1027 Seagull Nebula (Mon), Seagull Nebula head
• LBN 1033 Seagull Nebula wings, Seagull's wings
• LBN 1041 Thor's Helmet, Duck Nebula
• LBN 1046 Snowman Nebula
• LBN 1052 Dolphin Head Nebula, Dolphin Nebula
• LBN 1065 Skull & Crossbones Nebula, Mandrill Nebula
• LBN 1067 Skull and Crossbones Nebula, Mandrill Nebula
• LBN 1107 Antares Nebula
• LBN 1108 Antares Nebula
• LBN 1111 Rho Ophiuchi Nebula
• LBN 1113 Blue Horsehead Nebula

61% of the Lynds bright nebulae lie within 10° of the Milky Way's plane

The hot stars that light emission nebulae and the dust clouds that make reflection nebulae both belong to the disk of the Milky Way, so the nebulae line its plane. The most lie in Cygnus (266), Cepheus (96) and Cassiopeia (94). 410 have a measured distance, from LBN 113 at 286 light-years to LBN 161 at 37,200. Most distances are for the cloud complex an object belongs to.

All Lynds bright nebulae by number

Each page lists 500 numbers on a sky map and in a sortable table.

• LBN 1 to 500
• LBN 501 to 1000
• LBN 1001 to 1125

Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae of 1965 used the same Sky Survey prints

Three years after the dark nebulae, Beverly Lynds published the Catalogue of Bright Nebulae in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement in 1965: 1,125 emission and reflection nebulae from the Palomar Sky Survey prints, again numbered in order of galactic longitude. It overlaps the Sharpless catalog of H II regions and the Van den Bergh catalog of reflection nebulae, and adds many faint nebulae found in neither.

Lynds often split a large nebula into several entries, so one well-known nebula can carry more than one LBN number. Nebulae that already have a page on Go Astronomy, such as the Messier and Sharpless objects, open that page.