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Hazy celestial objects called nebulae were a mystery to astronomers for at least two thousand years--and this mystery was bound up with larger questions about the size and shape of the universe. This talk examines a moment when dry plate techniques and long exposure times made it newly possible to photograph deep space. It revisits a debate between two early astrophotographers who used different methods, and disagreed about which nebulae appearing in their images were actual or merely visual artifacts. Their argument complicates how scientific breakthroughs become attributed to technological advances, showing how aesthetic questions structure scientific inquiry and reshape our view of reality.