The Most Beautiful Nebulas

published July 29, 2009

The night sky offers millions of beautiful sights that we are often too busy with our daily grind to take some time and admire. In the next few days I'll be posting collections of the most beautiful sights that we've been able to capture, starting with nebulas tonight. These interstellar clouds of dust and gas produce some of the most awe inspiring photos we've ever been able to take, and the variety of different colors, shapes, and sizes is amazing. Here are the most beautiful nebulas in my humble opinion.

Rosette Nebula - I love this nebula, particularly because it resembles the top half of a red skull, looking towards the top left.

 

Bubble Nebula (NGC-7635) - Stellar winds stemming from a huge star in the center form the 'bubble' in this gorgeous nebula.

 

Ant Nebula (Menzel 3) - This awesome nebula looks like Ryu's fireball hitting Ken's fireball. Ha-do-ken!

 

Helix Nebula - Sometimes called the "Eye of God," this nebula is also one of the closest planetary nebulas to us - at 700 light years away (so if you flew as fast as the speed of light, it'd take you a mere 700 years to get there).

 

Gomez's Hamburger - This one takes the award for the best named nebula, discovered in 1985 by Arturo Gomez.

 

Rotten Egg Nebula (Calabash Nebula) - This intriguing nebula is the result of a violent gas collision - violent enough to send the yellow portion screaming away at a mere 1,000,000 mph.

 

Spirograph Nebula (IC-418) - Only a couple million years ago this star was a common red giant star. It's odd that the pattern that resulted resembles the fun pattern creating toy from the 80's.

 

Blinking Eye Nebula (INGC 6826) - While not necessarily resembling a blinking eye, the nickname it given because the central star is too bright to view the outlying nebula. Much like the 40 Year Old Virgin, you got to use your peripherals.

 

Red Spider Nebula - Located in Sagittarius, the central star in this nebula is about a half a million degrees. That would be one of the hottest stars ever produced!

 

Twin Jet Nebula - Also known as the "Wings of the Butterfly Nebula," I find Twin Jet a bit more manly for this beautiful nebula.

 

Hourglass Nebula - This nebula was featured on the cover of National Geographic in april on 1997 and also dubbed as the "Eye of God." Whoever's eye it is, it's creepy as hell.

 

Red Rectangle Nebula (INGC 6826) - With so many asymmetrical nebulas and round/oval/elliptical shapes, it's pretty nuts to see what appears to be a perfect rectangle out in space.

 

Barnard's Merope Nebula - Not much is known about this nebula in the Pleiades, except that it is very close to a a star (0.06 light years from the star Merope - you can see it's rays in the top right). I love the ghost effect of this nebula.

 

Thackeray's Globules - Here we have an opening in the globules that resembles the country of Australia.

 

Lagoon Nebula - You can see this nebula with the naked eye in the constellation Sagittarius, although with our eyes it would look more like a faint gray cloud.

 

Keyhole Nebula - This is one of my personal favorites, because it closely resembles a left hand giving you the middle finger.

 

Crab Nebula - This is the nebula that formed from a supernova that Arab and Chinese astonomers observed in the year 1054.

 

Veil Nebula - The Veil Nebula is a faint remnant from an old supernova some 5,000-8,000 years ago. It officially covers an area about 6 times the diameter of our moon, but is very difficult to see. This photo is a part of the western veil.

 

Horsehead Nebula - When people think 'nebula,' this is probably the first image that pops in their head. No one can deny it's beauty, resembling a red aurora borealis with a chess knight imprinted on it.

 

Eskimo Nebula (Clownface Nebula) - This gorgeous and complex nebula resembles a face with a parka hood. This is one of my absolute favorites.

 

Cat's Eye Nebula - This beautiful nebula is one of the most well studied and complex. It's also one of the most gorgeous things in the universe.

 

Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula - This was voted one of the best photos Hubble has ever taken. It essentially is showing the birth of stars.

 

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