... Lunar Nearside . ... Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. ... The odd coincidence between the angular size of the far distant Moon and the angular width of nearby buildings created a striking juxtaposition. ... Also at the edge of the Orion molecular cloud complex some 1,500 light-years distant, NGC 1999's illumination is provided by the embedded variable star V380 Orionis. ...