Every 'picture' you've seen of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in its entirety is an artistic rendition. It's as if you've never been able to look into a mirror.
Sure we recognize the faults or suspicious motivations in others pretty easily. Harder though when it comes to ourselves or those that we have already accepted as trustworthy or righteous. That's why it's so hard when our heroes fail us or are revealed to be all too human. That's why it's hard to admit we're wrong.
In astronomy, we know less about our own galaxy, the Milky Way, than we do other galaxies. This somewhat surprising result is simply because we can't see the entire Milky Way in detail because we live in the middle of it. Other galaxies we can scan with surgical precision from afar and get a relatively unoccluded view. In fact, a lot of our conclusions about our own galaxy are formulated by looking careful examination of similar galaxies and drawing some inferences.
Recently, I've been struggling with a student's name (NN). Not uncommon for me but for whatever reason I've been struggling especially hard with this one (getting older seems to make it harder to change a firmly lodged wrong idea it seems (something about 'old dogs' and 'new tricks' ?)). Anyway, I found myself covering for my embarrassment (or rather not admitting to myself that I was embarrassed) by making a light joke when NN calls me on the continuing mispronunciation ("Oh, I was mislead by your friends purposefully mispronouncing your name when I ask"). Just last week I realized that I was making excuses for myself and I quietly apologized to her for being so bad at something so basic. So easy for me to recognize when a student blames everyone and everything but their own study habits for their lack of academic success, but it takes me so long to realize I am doing the same thing.
Just recently, astronomers have sighted the first solo black hole in our own galaxy:
We've known that they are there, but they are hard to see. Unseen but not unknown. We first spotted them in other galaxies, of course.
First you have to know a thing exists. Then you have to look for it elsewhere. Finally, you will be able to see it within.
Even when you know something exists and you can identify it, it is still hard to turn the lens so close to home, huh?
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