Paul McAndrew 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

ALT Thousands of bright stars shine against black space, more tightly condensed near the image’s center. The stars glint in shades of white, blue, and red, and diffraction spikes are visible around the foreground stars.

ALT A complex, glowing nebula stretches across the image in shades of purple, pink, yellow, and orange. Several stars shine throughout.

ALT Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat, blue background toward the bottom, and become thicker and smokier toward the top. Stars on one side light the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the bottom-right corner of the image toward the top-left corner. It begins as a dark and obscuring cloud at bottom right and gradually becomes brightly lit by many stars at the upper left. Other large, foreground stars lie between the nebula and the viewer.

ALT A bright, white galactic core shines near the center of the image with a faint bar of stars extending from it, diagonally to the right. Faint, hazy spiral arms encircle the core, with several distant stars and bright blue foreground stars with diffraction spikes scattered throughout the image, all against black space.