Celestial Star Clusters

Astrophotography showcasing star clusters, galaxies, and celestial objects, presenting a beautiful array of stars against a dark night sky.

A wide field view around the bright star Sirius with the Messier 41 star cluster below it.

An assortment of open star clusters near the star Delta Cassiopeiae.

NGC 3184, the Little Pinwheel Galaxy, with binary star Tania Australis.

Comet in front of celestial background with other deep sky objects

The small northern autumn constellations of Aries and Triangulum.

A wide field view around the bright star Sirius with the Messier 41 star cluster below it.

The open star cluster NGC 6811 in northern Cygnus.

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31 since it is the 31st object on Messier's list of diffuse sky objects, is the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda, but it is about four times as massive as the Milky Way. Together these two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The diffused light from Andromeda is caused by hundreds of billions of stars that compose it. The several distinct stars that surround Andromeda's image are actually stars in our galaxy that are well in front of the background object. Andromeda is so distant that it takes approximately two millions years for light to reach us from there.

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31), with satellite galaxies Messier 110 and Messier 32

Asterism of stars known as Kemble's Cascade in Camelopardalis.

The Great Andromeda Galaxy (M32) and its two brightest satellite galaxies M110 to the right and close to Andromeda, and M32 (Messier 32) to the upper left. June 11, 2013 at 02.27. Taken with digital image stacking.

Globular clusters Messier 53 and NGC 5053 in Coma Berenices.

NGC 4565 edge-on spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices.

Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 12158979

great image of nebula and galaxy in outer space

Comet Wirtanen 46P with the star clusters of Taurus.

Astrophotography of Messier 63 spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici constellation

IC 59 and IC 62 faint reflection nebulae near Gamma Cassiopeia.

Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10) during the early morning hours of January 19, 2016, seen from Eastern Colorado, USA. This comet has two tails, one going to the top left, the ion tail, and another diffused which is dust blown from the comet by the solar winds.

This infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that the Sombrero galaxy, named after its appearance in visible light to a wide-brimmed hat, is in fact two galaxies in one.

A telephoto lens image of the open star cluster Messier 67 in Cancer.

The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5128, show here in visible light, hosts the radio source known as Centaurus A. Located 12 million light-years away, it is one of the closest active galaxies.

Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 12155197

The constellation of Lepus, below Orion and to the west of the northern half of Canis Major at left.

This composite NASA Hubble Space Telescope Image captures the positions of comet Siding Spring and Mars in a never-before-seen close passage of a comet by the Red Planet, which happened at 2 28 p.m. EDT October 19, 2014. The comet passed by Mars at approximately 87,000 miles (about one-third of the distance between Earth and the Moon). At that time, the comet and Mars were approximately 149 million miles from Earth. The comet image shown here is a composite of Hubble exposures taken between Oct. 18, 8 06 a.m. EDT to Oct. 19, 11 17 p.m. EDT. Hubble took a separate photograph of Mars at 10 37 p.m. EDT on Oct. 18. The Mars and comet images have been added together to create a single picture to illustrate the angular separation, or distance, between the comet and Mars at closest approach. The separation is approximately 1.5 arc minutes, or one-twentieth of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The background starfield in this composite image is synthesized from ground-based telescope data

$M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, in a series of exposures to test stacking images with HDR techniques. I shot the galaxy in a series of 1, 2, 4, and 8 minute exposures, four of each exposure, all using the Nikon D750 and 92mm TMB refractor. A set of 1,2,4, and 8 minute exposures was stacked in Camera Raw using its HDR mode to create a new merged DNG file. I did this for four sets of 1 to 8 minute exposures, then processed each of the HDR stacks with Shadows and Highlights in ACR to bring out faint d$

NGC 7814 spiral galaxy in the constellation Pegasus.

Located some 25 million light-years away, this new Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 373-8. Together with at least seven of its galactic neighbours, this galaxy is a member of the NGC 2997 group. We see it side-on as a thin, glittering streak across the sky, with all its contents neatly aligned in the same plane. We see so many galaxies like this flat, stretched-out pancakes that our brains barely process their shape. But let us stop and ask: Why are galaxies stretched out and aligned like this? Try spinning around in your chair with your legs and arms out. Slowly pull your legs and arms inwards, and tuck them in against your body. Notice anything? You should have started spinning faster. This effect is due to conservation of angular momentum, and it’s true for galaxies, too. This galaxy began life as a humungous ball of slowly rotating gas. Collapsing in upon itself, it spun faster and faster until, like pizza dough spinning and stretching in the air, a disc started to form. An

Andromeda Galaxy.

Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 11912891

Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Ghost Nebula in the constellation Cepheus.

Open clusters Messier 35 and NGC 2158 in the constellation Gemini.

Open Star Clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884 in sky

The constellations of Corvus and Crater. The bright star Spica in Virgo is at left.

NGC 896 and NGC 884, the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus

The great Coma-Virgo cluster with galaxies M84 and M86 anchoring the arc of Markarian's Chain.

The dark nebula complex known as Barnard's E near the stars Altair and Tarazed.

Partial eclipse of the moon below the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

The constellations of Hercules and Corona Borealis in the northern spring and summer sky.

The Large Magellanic Cloud and bright star Canopus.

detail if m33 galaxy in the sky

Located in the constellation of Leo, extensive debris shells from the accretion of one or more long gone satellite galaxies encompass spiral galaxy NGC 3521 like a vast, cosmic bubble.

Sprial galaxy NGC 4565.

Is it a bird, or a plane No, it's comet Siding Spring streaking across the sky, as seen by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. An animation is available at the Photojournal.

NGC 5746 barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Virgo.

The Leo Triplet galaxies M66, M65, and NGC3628 in the constellation Leo

This image, courtesy of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), captures the glow of distant stars within NGC 5264, a dwarf galaxy located just over 15 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Serpent). Dwarf galaxies like NGC 5264 typically possess around a billion stars — just 1 percent of the number of stars found within the Milky Way. They are usually found orbiting other larger galaxies such as our own, and are thought to form from the material left over from the messy formation of their larger cosmic relatives. NGC 5264 clearly possesses an irregular shape — unlike the more common spiral or elliptical galaxies — with knots of blue star formation. Astronomers believe that this is due to the gravitational interactions between NGC 5264 and other galaxies nearby. These past flirtations sparked the formation of new generations of stars, which now glow in bright shades of blue.

The Sunflower Galaxy, also known as Messier 63, M63, or NGC 5055 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the Canes Venatici constellation, with a faint extended halo, showing extended arms and arcs in the outer regions

The Dumbbell Nebula, Messier 27.

Astrophotography, globular cluster Messier 13 or Hercules Cluster

CG, The Milky Way

Star cluster NGC 1528 (at left), with emission nebula NGC 1491, The Fossil Footprint Nebula (at right).

The Beehive Cluster is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer

galaxy in a free space Stars of a planet and galaxy in a free space Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 11720586

This image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows the galaxy NGC 1316, located about 62 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax. The elliptical-shaped galaxy may be in the late stages of merging with a smaller companion galaxy.

M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.

Andromeda Galaxy

Messier 106 and companion galaxies in Canes Venatici.

NGC 884, an open cluster in Perseus.

Nebulas of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in Draco with its near reddish star Edasich at top, and NGC 5907 galaxy below.

The infamous green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) passing by reddish Mars in Taurus.

Messier 98, Messier 99, and Messier 100 with fainter NGC galaxies in Coma Berenices.

Messier 31, a barred spiral galaxy in the Andromeda constellation.

Supernova Core pulsar neutron star., Elements of this image furnished by NASA

A red Mars passing below the blue Pleiades star cluster, Messier 45.

The California Nebula, NGC 1499, at top left, with the bright star Zeta Persei. at bottom A faint region of reflection nebulosity, IC 348, surrounds the star Atik, or Omicron Persei, at bottom right. The star just below NGC 1499 is Menkib, or Xi Persei. The field is similar to that of binoculars. This is a stack of 5 x 3-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 and 200mm Canon L-Series lens at f/2.8. An additional exposure taken through the Kenko Softon A filter is la

Coma Cluster of galaxies.

M13 Hercules Globular star cluster

The stars of the Pleiades cluster, also known by the names M45 and the

Edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4244, the Silver Streak Galaxy, in Canes Venatici.

Comey Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) nearest the Pleiades star cluster.

This stunning image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), shows part of the sky in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The region is rendered in exquisite detail — deep red and bright blue stars are scattered across the frame, set against a background of thousands of more distant stars and galaxies. Two features are particularly striking the colors of the stars, and the dramatic crosses that burst from the centers of the brightest bodies. While some of the colors in this frame have been enhanced and tweaked during the process of creating the image from the observational data, different stars do indeed glow in different colors. Stars differ in color according to their surface temperature very hot stars are blue or white, while cooler stars are redder. They may be cooler because they are smaller, or because they are very old and have entered the red giant phase, when an old star expands and cools dramatically as its core collapse

Markarian's Chain galaxies that form part of the Virgo Cluster.

On a clear evening in April of 1789, the renowned astronomer William Herschel continued his unrelenting survey of the night sky, hunting for new cosmic objects and found cause to celebrate! He spotted this bright spiral galaxy, named NGC 4707, lurking in the constellation of Canes Venatici or The Hunting Dog. NGC 4707 lies roughly 22 million light-years from Earth. Over two centuries later, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is able to "chase down" and view the same galaxy in far greater detail than Herschel could, allowing us to appreciate the intricacies and characteristics of NGC 4707 as never before. This striking image comprises observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), one of a handful of high-resolution instruments currently aboard the space telescope. Herschel himself reportedly described NGC 4707 as a “small, stellar” galaxy; while it is classified as a spiral (type Sm), its overall shape, center, and spiral arms are very loose and undefined, a

This image of comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko was taken on March 21, 2014, by the narrow-angle camera of the Rosetta spacecraft's Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS).

IC 342 intermediate spiral galaxy.

Comet C/2020 F3 Neowise.

This is an ultraviolet color image of the galaxy NGC5398 taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer on June 7, 2003. NGC5398 is a barred spiral galaxy located 60 million light-years from Earth.

Vintage Photograph. Colliding galaxies taken with 48-inch Schmidt Telescope.

Coma Berenices star cluster Melotte 111, with two galaxies at left; NGC 4559 and NGC 4565.

Photograph showing the spectrum of Dumb-bell nebula with comparison spectra. Photographed by Max Wolf (1863-1932) a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. Dated 19th century

An enormous mosaic of Stephans Quintet is the largest image to date from NASAs James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moons diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webbs Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). With its powerful, infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen details in this galaxy group. Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image. Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions. Most dramatically, Webbs MIRI instrument captures huge shock waves as one of the galaxies, NGC 7318B, smashes through the cluster. These regions surrounding the central pair of galaxies are shown in the colors red and gold. This composite NIRCam-MIRI image uses t

NASA image release May 20, 2011The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5128 is the radio source known as Centaurus A. Vast radio-emitting lobes (shown as orange in this optical/radio composite) extend nearly a million light-years from the galaxy.

Planet in a deep space against stars and nebula. Elements of this image furnished by NASA.. Planet in a deep space against stars.

Comet Garradd

M1, Crab Nebula, a supernova in the constellation Taurus

The Sombrero Galaxy

M1 crab nebula, supernova remnent

Lying far to the south in the constellation Centaurus, this huge globular cluster is the largest that surround the Milky Way and is 15,000 light years. It is visible to the naked eye from dark areas in the southern United States. This image was taken from the Florida Keys.

Outer Space Galaxy Stars Universe Cosmic Background

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Triton, a moon of Neptune, on August 25, 1989. This frame from a video using Voyager data recreates that exciting encounter.

Panorama of the constellations Leo, Cancer and Coma Berenices.

Constellation of the Ursa Major, Galaxy

This image of comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko was taken on March 20, 2014, by the wide-angle camera of the Rosetta spacecraft's Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS).

An eight-billion-year-old cluster of stars 13,000 light-years from Earth, called NGC 6791. Kepler

Messier 25, a bright star cluster in Sagittarius.

A nearby star, called WISEA J204027.30+695924, stands out in red in this image from the Second Generation Digitized Sky Survey.

The Omega and Eagle Nebulae

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