Clouds of Perseus

This is a big one (click to view):

From NASA APOD:

Cosmic clouds of gas and dust drift across this magnificent panorama, spanning some 17 degrees near the southern boundary of the heroic constellation Perseus. The collaborative skyscape begins with bluish stars of Perseus at the left, but the eye is drawn to the striking, red NGC 1499. Also known as the California Nebula, its characteristic glow of atomic hydrogen gas is powered by ultraviolet light from luminous blue star Xi Persei immediately to the nebula’s right. Farther along, intriguing young star cluster IC 348 and neighboring Flying Ghost Nebula are right of center. Connected by dark and dusty tendrils on the outskirts of a giant molecular cloud, another active star forming region, NGC 1333, lies near the upper right edge of the wide field of view. Shining faintly, dust clouds strewn throughout the scene are hovering hundreds of light-years above the galactic plane and reflect starlight from the Milky Way.

What Aurorae Look Like From Low Earth Orbit

These videos show the aurora borealis (or australis) effect from the perspective of the International Space Station:

Absolutely astonishing. You can clearly make out the Earth’s magnetic field!

via Universe Today

Quantum Levitation

I want this in my car:

via MOSEM²

NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge

From NASA APOD:

Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the galaxy’s bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565’s thin galactic plane. An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view, with neighboring galaxy NGC 4562 at the lower right. NGC 4565 itself lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. Easily spotted with small telescopes, sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed.

NGC 2467

From ESO:

Area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis (“The Stern”). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas. The image, looking like a colourful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (centre) and Haffner 19 (middle right: it is located inside the smaller pink region — the lower eye of the Mandrill), as well as vast areas of ionised gas. The bright star at the centre of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping shaping the structure of the whole nebular region.