Two large fuzzy patches near the south pole look like disconnected fragments of the Milky Way. The patches are two nearby galaxies less than 200,000 light-years away—the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. Only the tiny Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is closer to Earth than these neighbors.

The constellation Dorado (the Swordfish) contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The cloud has an irregular shape and no central core, probably because of the gravitational attraction of the Milky Way, which is ten times its size. The LMC encompasses several degrees in the sky and can be easily seen with the unaided eye.

The LMC was unknown to Europeans until the voyage of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1519. It appears as a huge and diffuse cloud in the sky and contains a treasure trove of celestial objects—nebulae, globular and open clusters, planetary nebulae, dust clouds, and a giant region of hydrogen gas. In 1987, supernova 1987A exploded in the LMC, the closest supernova in 400 years.

The most prominent object in the LMC is the Tarantula Nebula, a large diffuse nebula. It is a delight to sweep through this region with binoculars and rich field telescopes. Don't forget to zoom in afterwards and take a closer look at its many treasures.