clouds that wander through the sky
sometimes low and sometimes high
in the darkness of the night
in the sunshine warm and bright
ah! I wonder much if you
have any useful work to do
-anonymous-

The telescope points at the night sky and finds a giant molecular cloud hundreds of thousands of light years away. A  camera, mounted on the telescope gathers photons and squashes the cloud into one small magnificent and colourful image.

My adventure to these far away clouds began with less sophisticated equipment. I saw no colour just faint smudges and in some I could detect dark blotches, bands or filaments.

Maybe my first observations, without modern interventions were closer to what they might look like if we could one day travel so far.

One thing is for sure. Molecular Clouds have useful work to do. They are the stellar incubators and nurseries. They are the reason we see stars.