Visitors Galaxy Gallery
27.04.2001

A tantalizing assortment of island universes is assembled here. From top left to bottom right are the lovely but distant galaxies M61, NGC 4449, NGC 4725, NGC 5068, NGC 5247, and NGC 5775/5774. Most are spiral galaxies more or less like our own Milky Way.

M64: The Black Eye Galaxy
20.07.2023

This magnificent spiral galaxy is Messier 64, often called the Black Eye Galaxy or the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy for its dark-lidded appearance in telescopic views. The spiral's central region, about 7,400 light-years across, is pictured in this reprocessed image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

M74: The Perfect Spiral
6.04.2011

If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view.

The Orion Bullets
10.01.2013

Cosmic bullets pierce the outskirts of the Orion Nebula some 1500 light-years distant in this sharp infrared close-up. Blasted out by energetic massive star formation the bullets, relatively dense, hot gas clouds about ten times the size of Pluto's orbit, are blue in the false color image.

Waves of the Great Lacerta Nebula
14.09.2022

It is one of the largest nebulas on the sky -- why isn't it better known? Roughly the same angular size as the Andromeda Galaxy, the Great Lacerta Nebula can be found toward the constellation of the Lizard (Lacerta).

Bright Star Knots in NGC 4038
2.06.1997

This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so should be quite tumultuous. NGC 4039 was a normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, when NGC 4038 crashed into it.

Inside The Elephant's Trunk
9.04.2005

In December of 2003, the world saw spectacular first images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, including this penetrating interior view of an otherwise opaque dark globule known as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. Seen...

Comet over California
7.03.2008

Still gracing northern skies, a fading Comet Holmes lies at the top edge of this colorful skyview, recorded on March 4. The reddish emission nebula below it is NGC 1499, also known as the California Nebula for its resemblance to the outline of the state on the US west coast.

M76 Above and Below
21.11.2008

Also known by the popular name the "Little Dumbbell Nebula", M76 is one of the fainter objects listed in Charles Messier's 18th century Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters. Like its better-known namesake M27 (the Dumbbell Nebula), M76 is recognized as a planetary nebula - a gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star.

The Necklace Nebula
3.11.2010

The small constellation Sagitta sports this large piece of cosmic jewelry, dubbed the Necklace Nebula. The newly discovered example of a ring-shaped planetary nebula is about 15,000 light-years distant. Its bright ring with pearls of glowing gas is half a light-year across.