Star cloud

A dense patch of the Milky Way where we look through a gap in the dust into thousands of distant stars.

Star clouds aren't clusters: they're windows. In Sagittarius and Scutum, gaps in the Milky Way's dust let us see deep into the galaxy's crowded inner regions. The Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (M 24) is a glittering field over a degree long — glorious in binoculars and at the lowest power.