APOD on Nostr: **Astronomy Picture of the Day** 31 July 2026 **NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad** Image: ...
**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
31 July 2026
**NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad**
Image:
Credit: Alessandro Cipolat Bares
Explanation: The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies , a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca , The Fly. A dusty interstellar cloud, it's seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372 . Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad. About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long, the Dark Doodad's well defined silhouette belongs to the potentially star-forming Musca molecular cloud . The dusty Dark Doodad's delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback.
#APOD #Astroeducation #Space #Cosmos #Astronomy
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260731.htmlPublished at
2026-07-31 04:07:22 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "**Astronomy Picture of the Day**\n\n31 July 2026\n\n**NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad**\n\nImage: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/DARK-DOODAD_1024.jpg\n\nCredit: Alessandro Cipolat Bares\n\nExplanation: The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies , a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca , The Fly. A dusty interstellar cloud, it's seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372 . Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad. About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long, the Dark Doodad's well defined silhouette belongs to the potentially star-forming Musca molecular cloud . The dusty Dark Doodad's delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback.\n\n#APOD #Astroeducation #Space #Cosmos #Astronomy\n\nhttps://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260731.html\n",
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