In early 2020, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of the Radcliffe Wave, an astonishing undulating structure in our part of the galaxy. Spanning nearly 9,000 light years, this structure extends halfway across the sky from Cygnus to Orion and rises about 500 light years above and below the plane of the Milky Way. While it mostly consists of a series of interconnected clouds of dark gas and dust, a few glowing stellar nurseries have emerged along the Radcliffe Wave, many within reach of visual observers and astrophotographers with a small telescope. In my latest article at Sky & Telescope (the cover article of the January 2023 edition), I tour the highlights of the Radcliffe Wave from one end to the other. This is the best time of year to see the entire wave, so grab your telescope and make a plan to head outside to follow the length of this immense interconnected structure. Read a PDF of the article at this link. You can also listen to an interview I did with the good folks at the Actual Astronomy podcast about the Radcliffe Wave at this link.
