Ghost of the Cepheus Flare
This appropriately titled APOD was from Halloween day, and if you sort through the holiday-related phrasing and lingo there's quite a spectacle to be had. The picture is not actually a ghost... but it is a cloud of cosmic dust (interesting by itself) that is seen by reflected starlight. It is referenced as 'at the edge' of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex, even though it is 1,200 light-years away. If that is 'at the edge', then I can't even imagine what is considered just 'close'. Maybe it's the brightness of the background stars that throws off the comprehending of the distance. From Earth you cannot see that many stars that bright at once except on very rare occasions during which you must by in an extremely remote place. They make it almost unreal. Most importantly, however, is the dark spot on the right side of the image. That spot could extremely easily be the beginning stages of a binary star forming. So in trying to capture one fraction of a second of a so-called 'ghost', the picture really captures the creation of something new.
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