What's In A Nebula?

            What’s in a name? That which you call a nebula, by any other name….
            It’s amazing how differently different people see things. Remember when, as a child, you and a friend looked at a cloud; you said that it looked like an elephant, but your buddy thought that it looked like a Volkswagen?
            In my experience, it’s been much the same way with nebulae. I love astronomy, and I exhaustively collect astronomical photographs from every source that I can find. In many cases, I was familiar with the image of a specific nebula before I learned what astronomers called it. For convenience, I “named” each one, just for my own organizational purposes, you understand. Later, when I happened upon each official name, I was then often stunned by how differently the astronomers “saw it.”
            It turned out that what I had dubbed “The Lace Doily,” they called “The Tarantula.” Egad.
            What I had referred to as “The Cockroach,” the astronomers had named “The Swan.” (I still think that it looks like a cockroach. Darned if I see a swan in there).
            The one that I’d thought of as “The Alien Fetus,” the professionals had been referring to all along as “The Lagoon.” (I had heard of “The Lagoon” by that time, without realizing which one it was).
            What I had called “The Alien Robot,” they had dubbed “Carina” or “The Keyhole.” (Don’t ask me).
            Even when I obtained the name along with the picture, I often scratched my head over the assigned name. (Example: why call it “The Trifid” when it looks like a pair of lovely pink-and-blue scabiosas in full-bloom???)
            But here’s the kicker: the one that is officially referred to as “The Elephant’s Trunk” looks exactly like a…(uh oh, can I say that in here?)…a “male member.” (No, I don’t mean a member of the chorus. Use your imagination). I can’t believe that the astronomers didn’t notice that. In fact, I’m betting that they did. Further, I envision their conversation thusly:
            “Hey, Frank, are you ready for this?? There’s a nebula up there that looks just like a dick!”
            “Aw, great. And we have to name the thing. Well, what then, we can’t just call it ‘The Dick Nebula’.”
            “Why not?”
            “Don’t be an _ss! Little kids get interested in astronomy! You can’t have them going around saying, ‘Mommy! Come look through my telescope at “The Dick Nebula!”’”
            “Well, then, what do you want to call it??”
            “I don’t know! What else looks like a dick?”
            “I got it! An elephant’s trunk!”
            “Okay, we’ll go with that.”

What do you see?