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Observing Nebulae Season by Season

Many fine nebulae are visible even in small telescopes.

by Walter Scott Houston

Orion
Orion, the Hunter, takes center stage in the sky throughout winter and early spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The Orion Nebula is clearly visible as a pink patch below the 3 stars of Orion's Belt.
Courtesy Akira Fujii.
From 1946 to 1994, Sky & Telescope magazine featured a column called Deep-Sky Wonders, written by amateur astronomer Walter Scott Houston. In it he explored the dim denizens of the deep sky — asterisms, double and variable stars, open and globular clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.

Deep-Sky Wonders, a month-by-month selection of those columns, was published in 1999 and is available from Sky Publishing. The following seasonal guide to a variety of nebulae consists of excerpts from the book.

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