Actual Galaxies

These are not representations, these are the REAL thing taken from a depth of field of about the size of a dime.

Bow Shock Wave

Bow Shock wave in Orion.

Cats Eye Nebula

Estimated to be 1,000 years old, the Nebula is a visual "fossil record" of the dynamics and late evolution of a dying star.

A preliminary interpretation suggests that the object might be a double-star system.

The Cone Nebula

A cragy-looking mountain top of cold gas and dust.

The Dumbbell Nebula (upclose - wallpaper)

An aging star's last hurrah is creating a flurry of glowing knots of gas that appear to be streaking through space in this close-up image of the Dumbbell Nebula, taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The Dumbbell Nebula-Full View (not wallpaper)

Put this in so you can see why it's called the "Dumbbell Nebula" The wallpaper didn't show it.

A Pair of Galaxies

Through an extraordinary chance alignment, the Hubble telescope has captured a view of a face-on spiral galaxy lying precisely in front of another larger spiral. The unique pair is called NGC 3314. NGC 3314 lies about 140 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra.

Helix Nebula

This one is looks like God's Eye. I think it should've been called the "God's Eye Nebula". But I guess that's not 'PC' enough. Don't want to offend the Atheists.

Horse Head Nebula - Take I

This Nebula is in Orion and is one of THE most downloaded celestial pics on the Internet.

Horsehead Nebula - Take II

A more close-up view.

Jupiter

Our Solar Systems Big Brother.

The Little Ghost Nebula

This glowing apparition is known to amateur astronomers as the "Little Ghost Nebula," because it appears as a small, ghostly cloud surrounding the faint, dying central star.

Mars

Our (Earth's) Baby Brother.

Nebula N44c

A lot of scientific stuff went with this pic which was frankly quite boring. So I decided to state, instead, that within the name of this nebula, lies a joke. "Nuff" said.

Omega Nebula

Very colorful Nebula

Pinwheel Galaxy

Phases of Saturn

These Hubble telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves around the Sun.

The Sombrero Galaxy

The Southern Ring Nebula

These nebulae are huge shells of gas ejected by stars as they near the ends of their lifetimes. NGC 3132 is nearly half a light year in diameter, and at a distance of about 2,000 light-years is one of the nearest known planetary nebulae.

Spiral Galaxy

Amid a backdrop of far-off galaxies, the majestic dusty Spiral NGC 3370 looms in the foreground in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image.

SuperNova Cassiopeia

The light from the exploding star reached Earth 320 years ago, nearly a century before our United States celebrated its birth with a bang. Cas A is the youngest known supernova remnant in our Milky Way Galaxy and resides 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, so the star actually blew up 10,000 years before the light reached Earth in the late 1600s.

Tadpole Galaxy

A colliding galaxy dubbed the "Tadpole" (UGC10214). Set against a rich tapestry of 6,000 galaxies, the Tadpole, with its long tail of stars, looks like a runaway pinwheel firework

Thackerys Globules

The Mice

Another picture depicts a spectacular collision between two spiral galaxies -- dubbed "The Mice" -- that presages what may happen to our own Milky Way several billion years from now when it collides with the neighboring galaxy in the constellation Andromeda.

Uranus

Infrared image shows the Gas giants rings.

Whirlpool Galaxy

This galaxy, also called M51 or NGC 5194, is having a close encounter with a nearby companion galaxy, NGC 5195, just off the upper edge of this image.