It also helps if the nebulae have a distinctive shape. Luckily, B86 does have a distinctive shape. It's round, like a neat splotch of ink, which is why it is nicknamed Barnard's Ink Spot. It is shocking to see this small symmetrical batch of black surrounded by stars and starclouds in the Milky Way brightness. To get your bearings and to learn a quick method of determining distances between stars or between stars and targeted objects, hold your fist at arms length and sight past it.
Young viewers have smaller hands and shorter arms but their hands stay in proportion.
A clenched fist measures about 10 degrees from thumb to pinkie. Know the field of view in your telescope's finder and you will have no trouble hopping up to this magnificent object from Gamma Sagittarii. It reminds some of a black widow spider with a dark inky body and a smaller shimmering head. If you enjoy discovering B86, Barnard's Ink Spot, there are a dozen more to enjoy within the Sagittarius Star Cloud. Well known and easiest to see is B85, the dark regions in the Trifid nebula M20.