Rarely do cosmic clouds create letters suspended in the sky, but such is the case with a pair of dark nebulae, B142 and B143 in Aquila, which seem to form a capital letter E. It is nicknamed Barnard’s E because the nebulae were discovered by astronomer E.E. Barnard. Set off by a particularly rich Milky Way star field, this nebula can be glimpsed in small telescopes on a dark night.
BERNHARD HUBL