The sky around Ghost Nebula 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.
Ghost Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus, 1,110 light-years away
Ghost Nebula (vdB 141) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus, 1,110 light-years away. spans 17′ of sky, about 5.4 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in September.
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.
Ghost Nebula is vdB 141 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+67 1300, magnitude 10.8. He rated it faint in brightness and red in color.
Finding Ghost Nebula from Alfirk
Ghost Nebula lies 2.5° southwest of Alfirk, the magnitude 3.2 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Ghost Nebula is highest in the evening in September
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 22°S, and never sets north of 22°N.
Ghost Nebula is 1,110 light-years away
The light seen from Ghost Nebula tonight left it about 1,110 years ago, around 916 AD. It ranks 46 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (341 pc).
