The sky around Sh2-160 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.
Sh2-160 is an emission nebula (H II region) in Cepheus, 3,100 light-years away
Sh2-160 (LBN 551) is an emission nebula (H II region) in the constellation Cepheus, 3,100 light-years away. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in October.
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.
Sh2-160 is Sh2-160 in the Sharpless catalog
Stewart Sharpless listed it in his catalog of H II regions (1959), drawn from the red and blue prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. He rated each region's brightness on a scale of 1 to 3; Sh2-160 is faint (class 1 of 3). It is also listed as LBN 551.
Finding Sh2-160 from ι Cep
Sh2-160 lies 2.3° southeast of ι Cep, the magnitude 3.5 star. That is within one binocular field.
Sh2-160 is highest in the evening in October
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 25°S, and never sets north of 25°N.
Sh2-160 is 3,100 light-years away
The light seen from Sh2-160 tonight left it about 3,100 years ago. It ranks 27 of 159 by distance among the Sharpless nebulae with a measured distance. Distance source: spectrophotometric, Foster & Brunt 2015 (0.95 kpc).
