Celestia Forums

It's just me, or the nebulaes are too big? Have anyone noticed that when you look at a nebulae (let's say Horse Head in Orion, wich looks half the size of the constellation) it apears bigger than the Moon (if you are in the vicinity on Earth)? Is this correct or is a bug (I'm using v1.3.1 pre11).

The Horsehead nebula region is larger than the moon, although the Horsehead itself (B33) is quite a bit smaller. The pink nebula in the background, IC 434, is about 1.5 degrees long and 0.23 degree wide. The moon is only about 0.5 degree across.

If you look at the version on my "billboard" page at http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/billboard.html#5.4, you'll see how Celestia's stars align precisely with those in the astronomical photograph when viewed from the vicinity of the Earth.

Nebulas are invisible to the naked eye because they have extremely low surface brightness, so most people don't realize how large many of them are.