<p id="docs-internal-guid-1995ded7-1c26-fdf2-951a-19380f830573" dir="ltr"><strong>Looking like a magical sorcerer, the Wizard Nebula is a star-forming region located some 8000 light-years from Earth within our Milky Way galaxy.</strong></p><p dir="ltr">Imaged here by the four-meter Mayall telescope at <a href="http://www.noao.edu/kpno/">Kitt Peak National Observatory</a> in Arizona, the giant cloud of gas and dust surrounds an open cluster of young stars some five million years old. Radiation emitted by the stellar cluster lights up the colorful nebula from which it was born.</p><p dir="ltr">The Wizard, known formally as NGC 7380, stretches more than 100 light-years across, appearing larger than the disk of a full moon, and is visible in small telescopes within the northern constellation Cepheus.</p><p dir="ltr"><em>—Andrew Fazekas</em></p>