The sky around vdB 13 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 13 is a reflection nebula in Aries, 960 light-years away
vdB 13 (Ced 13) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Aries, 960 light-years away. spans 4′ of sky, about 1.1 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in December.
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 13 is vdB 13 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 BD+30 540, B8V, magnitude 9.2. He rated it faint in brightness and blue in color.
Finding vdB 13 from ζ Per
vdB 13 lies 6.1° west of ζ Per, the magnitude 2.8 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
vdB 13 is highest in the evening in December
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 59°S, and never sets north of 59°N.
vdB 13 is 960 light-years away
The light seen from vdB 13 tonight left it about 960 years ago, around 1066 AD. It ranks 39 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (294 pc).
