Object name: BARNARD146Designation(s): BARNARD146, Barnard 146 is a small, very dense dark nebula in Cygnus not far, one degree northeast, from the often imaged famous Tulip Nebula, SH2-101. In fact, it is seen in many wide-angle images of it. Though I found it misidentified in more than one image. I didn't find any image of just Barnard 146 itself and being small it is almost lost in the wide field images.
6.6 magnitude SAO 69324 a double star is composed of an O4I and 09.5II star. Per SIMBAD the star has a parallax of 0.00116 which puts it 2,800 light-years distant. For some crazy reason, The Sky gives a parallax of 0.03 mas which translates to over 100,000 light-years meaning it is far beyond our galaxy. Obviously Sum Ting Wong strikes again. The SIMBAD figure seems far more reasonable. The star, however, is likely unrelated to the nebula but I assume in front of it making the nebula more than 2800 light-years distant. I found no reliable estimate of its distance. The nebula appears to be in front of the general hydrogen cloud the pervades much of Cygnus.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | |