Is this the most pathetic object in any major catalogue? True, M40 is pretty bad, but I dare you to find the vdB 53 reflection nebula at the center of this image. Use the mouseover to help you find it.
This very faint "nebula" is located 1300 light years away in the constellation of Orion at a declination of -10 degrees. It spans 3 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a width of 1.3 light years.
Sidney van den Bergh published his vdB catalog of reflection nebulae in 1966. It was later expanded by one for a total of 159. The collection encompassed all reflection nebulosity visible on the Palomar Sky Survey north of -33 degrees latitude. My Astrobin vdB Collection, which is about 85% complete, is
here.
I rated this object as a 0 in my Compendium (on a scale of 0 to 5) and I fear that I may have overrated it. You know it is bad when the 4 star asterism in the upper left corner, NGC 2054, is much more exciting to see.
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