The entire Large Magellanic Cloud with annotations (ground-based image): This image shows the entire Large Magellanic Cloud, with some of the brightest objects marked. The outline shown corresponds to the overview image from Digitized Sky Survey 2. The field of view is about ten degrees across.

Name: Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : IrregularLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Dwarf
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 150000 light years
Release date: 22 June 2010, 11:00
Credit: Robert Gendler/ESO

A cosmic concoction in NGC 2467: A colourful star-forming region is featured in this stunning new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 2467. Looking like a roiling cauldron of some exotic cosmic brew, huge clouds of gas and dust are sprinkled with bright blue, hot young stars. Strangely shaped dust clouds, resembling spilled liquids, are silhouetted against a colourful background of glowing. Like the familiar Orion Nebula, NGC 2467 is a huge cloud of gas — mostly hydrogen — that serves as an incubator for new stars. This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys through three different filters (F550M, F660N and F658N, shown in blue, green and red). These filters were selected to let through different colours of red and yellow light arising from different elements in the gas. The total aggregate exposure time was about 2000 seconds and the field of view is about 3.5 arcminutes across. These data were taken in 2004.

Name: NGC 2467
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Puppis
Distance: 13000 light years
Release date: 13 July 2010, 12:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and Orsola De Marco (Macquarie University)

Wide-field view of NGC 2467 (ground-based image): This is a wide field, ground-based view of the region around NGC 2467 created from digitised photographs taken through red and blue filters. The field of view is about three degrees across.

Name: NGC 2467
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Puppis
Distance: 13000 light years
Release date: 13 July 2010, 12:00
Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin

A cosmic question in NGC 4696: This picture, taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster. The huge dust lane, around 30 000 light-years across, that sweeps across the face of the galaxy makes NGC 4696 look different from most other elliptical galaxies. Viewed at certain wavelengths, strange thin filaments of ionised hydrogen are visible within it. In this picture, these structures are visible as a subtle marbling effect across the galaxy’s bright centre.

Name: NGC 4696
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Elliptical
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Centaurus
Distance: 120 million light years
Release date: 12 August 2010, 12:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

Mass map of Abell 1689: This image shows the galaxy cluster Abell 1689, with the mass distribution of the dark matter in the gravitational lens overlaid (in purple). The mass in this lens is made up partly of normal (baryonic) matter and partly of dark matter. Distorted galaxies are clearly visible around the edges of the gravitational lens. The appearance of these distorted galaxies depends on the distribution of matter in the lens and on the relative geometry of the lens and the distant galaxies, as well as on the effect of dark energy on the geometry of the Universe.

Name: Abell 1689
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Supercluster
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Release date: 19 August 2010, 20:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, E. Jullo (JPL/LAM), P. Natarajan (Yale) and J-P. Kneib (LAM).