IC 2574: Coddington s Nebula
19.02.2026

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In fact, dwarf galaxy IC 2574 shows clear evidence of intense star forming activity in its telltale reddish regions of glowing hydrogen gas.

Facing NGC 6946
4.10.2002

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face on. The big beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 10 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground stars in the high and far-off constellation of Cepheus.

NGC 1275: A Galactic Collision
5.05.2003

In NGC 1275, one galaxy is slicing through another. The disk of the dusty spiral galaxy near the image center is cutting through a large elliptical galaxy, visible predominantly on the lower left. Galaxies...

The Andromeda Deep Field
19.05.2003

What can you learn from looking into the depths of space? In an effort to find out true ages of stars in neighboring Andromeda galaxy's halo, astronomers stared into the galaxy giant with the new Advanced Camera for Surveys through the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mercury and Venus in the West
2.04.2004

Doing their part in the ongoing dance of the planets, Mercury and Venus both reached their greatest elongation or maximum apparent distance from the Sun only a few days ago, on March 29th. Eager...

Snake in the Dark
21.05.2005

Dark nebulae snake across a gorgeous expanse of stars in this wide-field view toward the pronounceable constellation Ophiucus and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. In fact, the central S-shape seen here is well known as the Snake Nebula.

Reflecting Merope
15.07.2006

(xxxedit and linkxxx) In the well known Pleiades star cluster, starlight is slowly destroying this wandering cloud of gas and dust. The star Merope lies just off the upper left edge of this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.

M42: Wisps of the Orion Nebula
20.11.2006

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image, faint wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident.

The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula
11.11.2008

First cataloged as a star, 30 Doradus is actually an immense star forming region in nearby galaxy The Large Magellanic Cloud. The region's spidery appearance is responsible for its popular name, the Tarantula nebula, except that this tarantula is about 1,000 light-years across, and 180,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado.

NGC 3521: Galaxy in a Bubble
15.09.2011

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65.