The Flickr Cosmic Image Generatr

This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a small portion of the Rosette Nebula, a huge star-forming region spanning 100 light-years across and located 5,200 light-years away. Hubble zooms into a small portion of the nebula that is only 4 light-years across (the approximate distance between our Sun and the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system.) Dark clouds of hydrogen gas laced with dust are silhouetted across the image. The clouds are being eroded and shaped by the seething radiation from the cluster of larger stars in the center of the nebula (NGC 2440). An embedded star seen at the tip of a dark cloud in the upper right portion of the image is launching jets of plasma that are crashing into the cold cloud around it. The resulting shock wave is causing a red glow. The colors come from the presence of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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This Hubble Space Telescope image captures the beauty of the moth-like planetary nebula NGC 2899. This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a nearly 40,000-degree-Fahrenheit white dwarf at the center. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and sculpting the nebula, which is pinched in the middle by a fragmented ring or torus – looking like a half-eaten donut. It has a forest of gaseous “pillars” that point back to the source of radiation and stellar winds. The colors are from glowing hydrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies approximately 4,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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This is a combination of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars taken from December 28th to 30th, 2024. At the midpoint of the observations, Mars was approximately 61 million miles from Earth. Thin water-ice clouds that are apparent in ultraviolet light give the Red Planet a frosty appearance. The icy northern polar cap was experiencing the start of Martian spring. In the left image, the bright orange Tharsis plateau is visible with its chain of dormant volcanoes. The largest volcano, Olympus Mons, pokes above the clouds at the 10 o’clock position near the northwest limb. At an elevation of 70,000 feet, it is 2.5 times the height of Mt. Everest above sea level. Valles Marineris, Mars’ 2,500-mile-long canyon system, is a dark, linear, horizontal feature near center left. In the right image, high-altitude evening clouds can be seen along the planet’s eastern limb. The 1,400-mile-wide Hellas basin, an ancient asteroid impact feature, appears far to the south. Most of the hemisphere is dominated by the classical “shark fin” feature, Syrtis Major.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured in exquisite detail a face-on view of a remarkable-looking galaxy. NGC 5335 is categorized as a flocculent spiral galaxy with patchy streamers of star formation across its disk. There is a striking lack of well-defined spiral arms that are commonly found among galaxies, including our Milky Way. A notable bar structure slices across the center of the galaxy. The bar channels gas inwards toward the galactic center, fueling star formation. Such bars are dynamic in galaxies and may come and go over two-billion-year intervals. They appear in about 30 percent of observed galaxies, including our Milky Way.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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La Nebulosa Rosetta (NGC 2237) si trova a circa 5.200 anni luce da noi, nella costellazione dell’Unicorno.

Qui ne ho ripreso un dettaglio con uno SkyWatcher 200/1000 e un’ora di posa dal cielo cittadino.
Se guardate con attenzione, noterete delle bande oscure che contrastano con il gas colorato circostante.

Queste sono polveri interstellari, composte da minuscoli granelli di carbonio e silicio, bloccano la luce delle stelle retrostanti e appaiono come sentieri oscuri.

Le nebulose come questa sono composte principalmente da idrogeno e sono le regioni dove si formano nuove stelle.
Se potessimo osservarla su una scala di tempo di centinaia di migliaia di anni, vedremmo quelle stelle apparire e cambiare e il gas lentamente concentrarsi in nuovi Soli

#astronomy #unicorn #unicorno #rosetta #rosette #starfield #ngc2244 #cosmic #stars #stelle #ngc2237

descente aux mères

LeVier Cosmic Wind. One of the first three built during 1947-8.

LeVier Cosmic Wind. One of the first three built during 1947-8.

Little experiment using stock by Ian Parker (Thank you!).

Under the silver glow of a full moon, the night air trembled with ancient power. From the gilded arches of her home realm—the Celestial Spire suspended between nebulae—Seraphiqua descended. Clad in jeweled armor that gleamed like molten starlight and framed by a halo of ebony curls, she was the living embodiment of cosmic majesty. Her skin bore swirling filigree of pale luminescence, and her eyes held the promise of secret heavens.


Seraphiqua’s mission was written in the tapestry of the stars: to find a mortal who could ignite the dormant warmth of her immortal heart. Across oceans and continents, she followed a single scent on the wind—a perfume of summer rain and jasmine. It led her to a quiet seaside village, where a young poet named Elara lived, her soul woven from ink and moonbeams.


One languid evening, Elara wandered the shoreline under a sky painted with auroras. As she stooped to trace her name in the sand, the air shimmered. A ripple of golden light parted the horizon, and there stood Seraphiqua, every bit as formidable and beautiful as legend promised. Elara’s heart thundered, equal parts fear and awe, but the goddess’s smile was gentle—an invitation.


They spoke in whispers that blended human language with celestial song. Seraphiqua’s voice was warm as liquid bronze, and when she reached out, time itself seemed to slow. Under a vault of dripping stars, the goddess drew Elara into an embrace that transcended mortal bounds. Their lips met in a kiss both tender and electrifying, weaving Elara’s beating humanity with Seraphiqua’s ageless divinity.


Fingers glided over Elara’s skin like shooting stars, illuminating hidden landscapes of desire. The goddess’s touch was a benediction: a promise that love could span galaxies. As dawn approached, the two intertwined beneath a tapestry of dawn’s first blush, a fusion of mortal warmth and immortal flame.


When morning broke, Elara awoke to find Seraphiqua bathed in soft light—her armor now faintly iridescent, as if touched by the poet’s heart. The goddess pressed a single jeweled tear to Elara’s forehead, sealing their bond. “Our worlds are forever entwined,” she whispered, voice echoing like distant bells.


With that, Seraphiqua ascended, leaving behind a single feather of dark enamel and a faint trail of cosmic dust. Elara held the token close, her pulse still echoing that divine embrace. And upon Earth, wherever lovers looked skyward, they saw a new constellation—two entwined figures, forever dancing in the velvet night.

Photographed 15 December 2023, Wachusett View, Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts


Body: Sony A7 III
Lens: Sigma 14-24mm F2.8 DG DN | A

Start/Stop Time: 2323 to 0410
Images: 506
Shutter Speed: 20 seconds
Interval: 10 seconds
ISO: 1250
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 14mm


Thanks in advance for your views, favorites, and supportive comments.

Today’s rather aquatic-themed NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy, which sits 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).

The designation Messier 77 comes from the galaxy’s place in the famous catalog compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier. Another French astronomer, Pierre Méchain, discovered the galaxy in 1780. Both Messier and Méchain were comet hunters who cataloged nebulous objects that could be mistaken for comets.

Messier, Méchain, and other astronomers of their time mistook the Squid Galaxy for either a spiral nebula or a star cluster. This mischaracterization isn’t surprising. More than a century would pass between the discovery of the Squid Galaxy and the realization that the ‘spiral nebulae’ scattered across the sky were not part of our galaxy but were in fact separate galaxies millions of light-years away. The Squid Galaxy’s appearance through a small telescope — an intensely bright center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud — closely resembles one or more stars wreathed in a nebula.

The name ‘Squid Galaxy’ is recent, and stems from the extended, filamentary structure that curls around the galaxy’s disk like the tentacles of a squid. The Squid Galaxy is a great example of how advances in technology and scientific understanding can completely change our perception of an astronomical object — and even what we call it!

Hubble previously released an image of M77 in 2013. This new image incorporates recent observations made with different filters and updated image processing techniques which allow astronomers to see the galaxy in more detail.

Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker

For more information: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spots-a-squid-in-...

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As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, the European Space Agency (ESA) is sharing a new image series revisiting stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.

ESA/Hubble published a new image of NGC 346 as the first installment in the series. Now, they are revisiting a fan-favorite galaxy with new image processing techniques. The new image reveals finer detail in the galaxy’s disk, as well as more background stars and galaxies.

Over the past two decades, Hubble has released several images of the Sombrero Galaxy, including this well-known Hubble image from October 2003. In November 2024, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope also provided an entirely new perspective on this striking galaxy.

Located around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the Sombrero Galaxy is instantly recognizable. Viewed nearly edge on, the galaxy’s softly luminous bulge and sharply outlined disk resemble the rounded crown and broad brim of the Mexican hat from which the galaxy gets its name.

Though packed with stars, the Sombrero Galaxy is surprisingly not a hotbed of star formation. Less than one solar mass of gas is converted into stars within the knotted, dusty disk of the galaxy each year. Even the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, which at nine billion solar masses is more than 2,000 times more massive than the Milky Way’s central black hole, is fairly calm.

The galaxy is too faint to spot with the unaided eye, but it is readily viewable with a modest amateur telescope. Seen from Earth, the galaxy spans a distance equivalent to roughly one-third the diameter of the full Moon. The galaxy’s size on the sky is too large to fit within Hubble’s narrow field of view, so this image is actually a mosaic of several images stitched together.

One of the things that makes this galaxy especially notable is its viewing angle, which is inclined just six degrees off of the galaxy’s equator. From this vantage point, intricate clumps and strands of dust stand out against the brilliant white galactic nucleus and bulge, creating an effect not unlike Saturn and its rings — but on an epic galactic scale.

At the same time, this extreme angle makes it difficult to discern the structure of the Sombrero Galaxy. It’s not clear whether it’s a spiral galaxy, like our own Milky Way, or an elliptical galaxy. Curiously, the galaxy’s disk seems like a fairly typical disk for a spiral galaxy, and its spheroidal bulge and halo seem fairly typical for an elliptical galaxy — but the combination of the two components resembles neither a spiral nor an elliptical galaxy.

Researchers used Hubble to investigate the Sombrero Galaxy, measuring the metals (what astronomers call elements heavier than helium) in stars in the galaxy’s expansive halo. This type of measurement can help astronomers better understand a galaxy’s history, potentially revealing whether it merged with other galaxies in the past. In the case of the Sombrero Galaxy, extremely metal-rich stars in the halo point to a possible merger with a massive galaxy several billion years ago. An ancient galactic clash, hinted at by Hubble’s sensitive measurements, could explain the Sombrero Galaxy’s distinctive appearance.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll


For more information: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-provides-new-view...

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what a daydream . . .

Obligatory picture of the moon, had to do a least one.

Showing off the Fluffy Kreations Mooshroom [10] Chocolate Mint (fatpack v2 mod). There are 3 different fatpacks and singles available on the Marketplace and soon in the store.
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