About the Object:

Also cataloged as NGC 1555 or Sh2-238, Hind’s Variable Nebula is approximately four lightyears across and is illuminated by the star T Tauri. The nebula is approximately four hundred lightyears from Earth in the constellation Taurus. Variable nebulae or just what they sound like—reflection nebulae that change in brightness in response to variations in their parent star.

The nebula is also classified as a Herbig-Haro object which are sections of nebulosity formed when narrow jets of partially ionized gas ejected by stars collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust at several hundred kilometers per second. HH objects are transient phenomena that last around a few tens of thousands of years. They can change visibly over timescales of a few years as they move rapidly away from their parent star into the gas clouds of interstellar space. The Herbig-Haro object was first reported by Sherburne Wesley Burnham in 1890 using the famed 36” Lick refractor when he described an elongated star in a section of condensed nebulosity when observing, “Hind’s supposed variable nebula”.

Hind’s variable nebula was first discovered in 1852 by John Russell Hind, but faded from view a few years later, hence the reference by S W Burnham as a “supposed variable nebula”. Interestingly, Otto Struve in 1868 found a second small reflection nebula later cataloged as NGC 1554, but it likewise faded from view a few years later and has not reappeared. Today it is called “Struve’s Lost Nebula.”