It’s hard to come away from a star party without feeling inspired, especially from shared experiences with others. Consider the February 2012 Winter Star Party (WSP) in the Florida Keys, where Vic Menard of Bradenton, Florida, shared a peculiar visual phenomenon associated with starburst galaxy M82 in Ursa Major. If you sweep your eye across the galaxy’s major axis, he said, beads of “starlight” pop in and out of view like “twinkle lights on a Christmas tree.” The puzzle is that images of M82 show no obvious stars projected against the galaxy’s bright center.

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