The sky around Wolf's Cave 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.
Wolf's Cave Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus, 1,210 light-years away
Wolf's Cave Nebula (vdB 152, LBN 531, Ced 201, DG 179) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus, 1,210 light-years away. spans 10′ of sky, about 3.5 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.
Wolf's Cave Nebula is vdB 152 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+69 1231, B9.5V, magnitude 9.3. He rated it very bright in brightness and blue in color.
Finding Wolf's Cave Nebula from Alfirk
Wolf's Cave Nebula lies 3.8° east of Alfirk, the magnitude 3.2 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Wolf's Cave Nebula 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 20°S, and never sets north of 20°N.
Wolf's Cave Nebula is 1,210 light-years away
The light seen from Wolf's Cave Nebula tonight left it about 1,210 years ago, around 816 AD. It ranks 52 of 158 by distance among the Van den Bergh nebulae. Distance source: Gaia DR3 parallax of the illuminating star via AT-HYG v3.2 (370 pc).
