The sky around vdB 151 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 151 is a reflection nebula in Lacerta, 570 light-years away
vdB 151 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Lacerta, 570 light-years away. spans 11′ of sky, about 1.8 light-years across. 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.
vdB 151 is vdB 151 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 HD 211073, K3III, magnitude 4.5. He rated it faint in brightness and intermediate in color.
Finding vdB 151 from Matar
vdB 151 lies 11.2° northwest of Matar, the magnitude 2.9 star. A fist held at arm's length covers about 10°.
vdB 151 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 50°S, and never sets north of 50°N.
vdB 151 is 570 light-years away
The light seen from vdB 151 tonight left it about 570 years ago, around 1456 AD. It ranks 24 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (175 pc).
Objects within 6° of vdB 151
No other object on Go Astronomy's catalog pages lies within 6°.
