APOD: 2026 February 4 Б Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: Wide Field
4.02.2026

Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512's center -- and so hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which glows brightly with recently formed stars.

Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 4945
12.04.1999

For such a close galaxy, NGC 4945 is easy to miss. NGC 4945 is a spiral galaxy in the Centaurus Group of galaxies, located only six times farther away than the prominent Andromeda Galaxy. The thin disk galaxy is oriented nearly edge-on, however, and shrouded in dark dust.

M42: Wisps of the Orion Nebula
25.02.2003

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.

La Silla s Starry Night
23.09.2004

On clear, moonless nights, the stars still come out with a vengance above the high-altitude La Silla astronomical observatory. Taking advantage of a recent visit to this first European Southern Observatory (ESO) site constructed on a mountain top in Chile, ESO software engineer Nico Housen recorded this stunning sky view.

The Center of Centaurus A
22.08.1999

A fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, gigantic glowing gas clouds, and imposing dark dust lanes surrounds the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. This mosaic of Hubble Space Telescope images taken in blue, green, and red light has been processed to present a natural color picture of this cosmic maelstrom.

Stars and Mars
10.05.2008

Wandering through the evening sky, on May 4th planet Mars stood in line with Castor and Pollux, the two bright stars of the constellation Gemini. In this time exposure of the celestial alignment, Mars...

Spitzer s Milky Way
5.06.2008

The Spitzer Space Telescope's encompasing infrared view of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy is hard to appreciate in just one picture. In fact, more than 800,000 frames of data from...

The Whale and the Hockey Stick
21.08.2009

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on (top right) only 25 million light-years away towards the small northern constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others the popular moniker of The Whale Galaxy.

WISE: Heart and Soul Nebulas in Infrared
1.06.2010

Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the above right, has a shape in optical light reminiscent of a classical heart symbol.

Messier 101
15.04.2011

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy.