Straightening up the cosmos

Oh, what's an astronomer to do?

Faced with a messy sky, stars scattered here and there, faint and bright, how can we ever measure them?

Perhaps we should turn to artists. Urs Wehrli has an idea of how to fix this situation. Faced with this picture:

He turned it into this one:

Ha! Awesome. It does make it easier to find the galaxies, doesn't it?

Herr Wehrli has a knack for this; if you like that sky cleaning routine, you should see what he does with alphabet soup, a conifer twig, and a grassy field with sunbathers. He has these pictures, and more, in his books, including The Art of Tidying Up. I gotta say, I dig this guy's sense of humor.

Pictures credit: Urs Wehrli. Tip o' the dust pail to Lawrence Cuthbert, via Jeannie Jeannie.