                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2026 March 2
       The featured image shows a dusty starfield with intricate dust
   filaments all over. Red, blue, and brown nebulas will the field. Please
             see the explanation for more detailed information.

              The Dusty Surroundings of Orion and the Pleiades
                 Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Fernández

   Explanation: How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can
   you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here
   is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a
   deep image filled with filaments of normally faint dust and gas. This
   image contains the Pleiades star cluster, Barnard's Loop, Orion Nebula,
   Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Witch Head Nebula, Eridanus Loop, and the
   California Nebula. To find their real locations, here is an annotated
   image version. The reason this task might be difficult is similar to
   the reason it is initially hard to identify familiar constellations in
   a very dark sky: the tapestry of our night sky has an extremely deep
   hidden complexity. The featured composite reveals some of this
   complexity in a 16 hours of sky exposure in dark skies over Granada,
   Spain.

                        Tonight: Total Lunar Eclipse
                        Tomorrow's picture: over Mars
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

