In an era of huge ground-based telescopes, clever robotic sky scanners and powerful observatories in orbit, there are few deep space objects in our galaxy that escape notice by professional astronomers. So no one was more surprised about the discovery of a new nebula than the amateur who stumbled upon it with his small backyard telescope."I was absolutely shocked," Jay McNeil told SPACE.com a few days after his remarkable finding was announced by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) earlier this month.While comets and asteroids are occasionally discovered by backyard skywatchers, astronomers can't remember the last time an amateur found something this unique. By many accounts it has been several decades.

McNeil's nebula, as it is being called, is an illuminated cloud of gas and dust. It is lit by what astronomers think is a newborn star, catalogued as IRAS 05436-0007. Little is known about the star.Since the announcement, the discovery has generated a mystery.


View: Full Article | Source: space.com