What happens to the enormous amount of star data that astronomers from around the world collect at their telescopes? In recent years, as this information has become available in digital form, it has been archived in large computer databases accessible to any other astronomer who may have an interest in those star images or spectra for their research.
In the accompanying photo of the North America Nebula, taken nearly fifty years ago with the Vatican Observatory’s Schmidt camera in Castel Gandolfo, an arrow points to a feature known as Collinder 428.