A Quilt of Stars

The Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 // Kay Cross

And then there is the baby. Tucked just inside the sweep of that jeweled upper arm, a small coppery edge-on spiral glows against the pale envelope, its own dust lane clearly visible, its light reddened by distance. It lies hundreds of millions of light-years beyond M 96 and is utterly unrelated to it, yet from our line of sight the arm curls around the little galaxy like a protective arm around an infant, and the nickname becomes unavoidable. It is pure perspective, a chance alignment across a gulf of space deeper than the entire Leo group, but the eye refuses to see it any other way. Once you have seen M 96 holding the baby, you cannot unsee it.

NGC 6621 and NGC 6622 // UrsaMaiorObservatory

A starless Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146 // Ángel Ramírez

The Fireworks Galaxy, NGC 6946 // dreamy star

The War and Peace Nebula (NGC 6357, left) and the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334, right) // Jason dain

The Cooling Tower Cluster, M29 // Klaus Eltschka

The Giraffe Nebula, LDN 1295 // Dyan Swenning

The Pyramid Cluster, M39 // Peter Graf

The Rosette Nebula, Sh2-275 // Ali Hosseininejad

NGC 6894 // Bruce Donzanti

NGC 225 (stars) and vdB 4 (nebula) // Michael Caligiuri

The total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026 as seen from the Castillo De La Raya in Soria, Spain // Mickael Coulon

The Tulip Nebula, Sh2-101 // Jarred Roberts

The brightest star here is Aldebaran (α Tauri), although it is not related to the Hyades star cluster. Aldebaran is much closer to Earth; compare its distance of 65 light years to the Hyades' distance of 153 light years.

Stephan's Quintet, HCG 92 // Anis Abdul