Cocoon

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows IC 5146, The Cocoon Nebula.

You've probably noticed by now that if I post a APOD, more often than not, I'll post a picture of a nebula or a cluster or other deep sky object. These are among my favorite things to view in the night sky. Unless you have a fairly fancy setup (lots of aperture, a CCD camera, tracking ability), you'll never see a sight equivalent to this...but...

The faint fuzzies are fun to hunt down. It's kind of like fly fishing...stand in the cold for hours on end, trying to catch that little bundle of photons. So that's part of the appeal.

More of the appeal is in observing. If you go back to a target again and again, you're eye gets trained to start picking out faint detail. Using tricks like averted vision helps. Even things like sketching helps you in your seeing.