Unusual appendages around bright stars are commonplace, but never seem to be mentioned. What are they? First, a telescope brings starlight falling over a large area to a small area. To get at this...

The universe is filled with galaxies. But to see them astronomers must look out beyond the stars of our galaxy, the Milky Way. For example, consider this colorful telescopic view of spiral galaxy NGC 6384, about 80 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus.