By turning the eyes aside, the nebula can be seen, extended as a faint, wispy light, much elongated on either side of the brighter nucleus. The cut here given shows, approximately, the appearance of the nebula, together with some of the small stars in its neighborhood, as seen with a field-glass. With large telescopes it appears both larger and broader, expanding to a truly enormous extent, and in Bond's celebrated picture of it we behold gigantic rifts running lengthwise, while the whole field of sky in which it is contained appears sprinkled over with minute stars apparently between us and the nebula. It was in, or, probably more properly speaking, in line with, this nebula that a new star suddenly shone out in 1885, and, after flickering and fading for a few months, disappeared. That the outburst of light in this star had any real connection with the nebula is exceedingly improbable. Although it appeared to be close beside the bright nucleus of the nebula, it is likely that it was really hundreds or thousands of millions of miles either this side or the other side of it. Why it should suddenly have blazed into visibility, and then in so short a time have disappeared, is a question as difficult as it is interesting. The easiest way to account for it, if not the most satisfactory, is to assume that it is a variable star of long period, and possessing a very wide range of variability. One significant fact that would seem to point to some connection between star and the nebula, after all, is that a similar occurrence was noticed in the constellation Scorpio in 1860, and to which I have previously referred (see Chapter II). In that case a faint star projected against the background of a nebula, suddenly flamed into comparatively great brilliance, and then faded again. The chances against the accidental superposition of a variable star of such extreme variability upon a known nebula occurring twice are so great that, for that reason alone, we might be justified in thinking some mysterious causal relation must in each case exist between the nebula and the star. The temptation to indulge in speculation is very great here, but it is better to wait for more light, and confess that for the present these things are inexplicable.