It is located approximately 1° southwest of the central region of the Orion Nebula ; the star that illuminates it is the variable HD 36412, a white star of spectral class A7V, which is also an eclipsing variable and therefore also bears the variable star acronym EY Orionis. Its variation is between the ninth and tenth magnitude and has a total period of approximately 16.7 days. The light from this star gives the surrounding gases a bluish-white light.

With a parallax of 2.61  mas , which corresponds to a distance of 383  parsecs (1250 light years ), the nebula and the star associated with it would be physically located in the region of the Orion Molecular Nebula Complex , and in particular it is part of the same cloud complex that includes the region of ionized gases of the Orion Nebula, whose southwestern part branching in the direction of vdB 42 is known as the Extended Orion Nebula .