Barnard 160

Barnard 160 is located in the star cluster/emission nebula IC 1396 that contains the famous Elephant trunk Nebula in southern Cetus. While it obviously lies in front of the nebula I couldn't find a distance for it. That would put it closer than 2400 light-years. Many dark nebula with known distances in Cetus are about 1000 light-years distant. Barnard 160 may be part of these clouds. In any case many, some with Barnard numbers, are seen in front of this huge cloud.

The dark nebula on the left, above center, is DOBASHI 3176. The small cloud between it and Barnard 160 had no separate listing that I found. Below center left of Barnard 160 is a small two lobed dumbbell shaped very dark cloud. SIMBAD lists it as [G85] 9 part of cloud. The lower part of Barnard 160 also carries the designation DOBASHI 3168.

Barnard 160 is shown in some lists as of density 4 out of 6 in which 6 is densest. Much of it is rather low density though the various cores are at least level 4.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick