Exploring bright and dark nebulae

EARLY OBSERVERS OF NEBULAE — among them noted American astronomer E. E. Barnard and German astrophotography pioneer Max Wolf — noticed that bright and dark cosmic clouds often cluster together. William Herschel famously referred to the complexity of such objects when he described the Rho Ophiuchi cloud as a “hole in the sky!” He also noted the positional relationship between dark nebulae and rich star clusters that we now refer to as globular clusters. The Rho Ophiuchi region is a well-known example of this juxtaposition, but there are many more. Let’s begin our exploration of collections of some of these nebulae, starting at southern declinations and gradually moving northward.

First stop: Corona Australis

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