A hazy nebula: This new image from Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 showcases NGC 1501, a complex planetary nebula located in the large but faint constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe). Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, NGC 1501 is a planetary nebula that is just under 5000 light-years away from us. Astronomers have modelled the three-dimensional structure of the nebula, finding it to be a cloud shaped as an irregular ellipsoid filled with bumpy and bubbly regions. It has a bright central star that can be seen easily in this image, shining brightly from within the nebula’s cloud. This bright pearl embedded within its glowing shell inspired the nebula’s popular nickname: the Oyster Nebula. While NGC 1501's central star blasted off its outer shell long ago, it still remains very hot and luminous, although it is quite tricky for observers to spot through modest telescopes. This star has actually been the subject of many studies by astronomers due to one very unusual feature: it seems to be pulsating, varying quite significantly in brightness over a typical timescale of just half an hour. While variable stars are not unusual, it is uncommon to find one at the heart of a planetary nebula. It is important to note that the colours in this image are arbitrary. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Marc Canale.

Name: NGC 1501
Type: Local Universe : Nebula : Type : Planetary
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Camelopardalis
Distance: 5000 light years
Release date: 3 November 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASAAcknowledgement: Marc Canale

Hubble reveals a super-rich galactic neighbourhood: This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the super-rich galaxy cluster Abell 1413. Located between the constellations of Leo (The Lion) and Coma Berenices, the cluster is over 2 billion light-years from Earth. This image is dominated by a large and highly elliptical galaxy called MCG+04-28-097, with a halo of stars extending for more than 6.5 million light-years [1]. Abell 1413 is part of the Abell catalogue, a collection of over 4000 rich clusters of galaxies fairly close to Earth — at least from a cosmological perspective — their light took less than 3 billion years to reach us. The clusters are called rich due to the huge number of galaxies they play host to. Abell 1413 is observed to contain more than 300 galaxies held together by the immense gravity of the cluster. The strong interactions between these galaxies cause the material in the cluster to be heated to extremely high temperatures of almost 100 million degrees. Because of this, the cluster emits very strong X-ray radiation. Visible distortions in the image can be seen in the form of arcs, caused by gravitational lensing [2]. This image was created from optical and near-infrared exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Nick Rose. [1] The galaxies at the centre of Abell 1413 are found to be very highly elliptical whereas those at the periphery are more spherical. [2] Gravitational lensing occurs when the intense gravity of the cluster bends space-time around it, causing a range of bizarre and beautiful optical phenomena for galaxies located in the background.

Name: Abell 1413
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Leo
Distance: 2 billion light years
Release date: 10 November 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASAAcknowledgement: Nick Rose

A spiral in a furnace: This new Hubble image is a snapshot of NGC 986 — a barred spiral galaxy discovered in 1828 by James Dunlop. This close-up view of the galaxy was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). NGC 986 is found in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), located in the southern sky. NGC 986 is a bright, 11th-magnitude galaxy sitting around 56 million light-years away, and its golden centre and barred swirling arms are clearly visible in this image. Barred spiral galaxies are spiral galaxies with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. NGC 986 has the characteristic S-shaped structure of this type of galactic morphology. Young blue stars can be seen dotted amongst the galaxy’s arms and the core of the galaxy is also aglow with star formation. To the top right of this image the stars appear a little fuzzy. This is because a gap in the Hubble data was filled in with data from ground-based telescopes. Although the view we see in this filled in patch is accurate, the resolution of the stars is no match for Hubble’s clear depiction of the spiral galaxy.

Name: NGC 986
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Barred
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Fornax
Distance: 55 million light years
Release date: 17 November 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

A slashing smudge across the sky: The galaxy cutting dramatically across the frame of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a slightly warped dwarf galaxy known as UGC 1281. Seen here from an edge-on perspective, this galaxy lies roughly 18 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum (The Triangle). The bright companion to the lower left of UGC 1281 is the small galaxy PGC 6700, officially known as 2MASX J01493473+3234464. Other prominent stars belonging to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and more distant galaxies can be seen scattered throughout the sky. The side-on view we have of UGC 1281 makes it a perfect candidate for studies into how gas is distributed within galactic halos — the roughly spherical regions of diffuse gas extending outwards from a galaxy’s centre. Astronomers have studied this galaxy to see how its gas vertically extends out from its central plane, and found it to be a quite typical dwarf galaxy. However, it does have a slightly warped shape to its outer edges, and is forming stars at a particularly low rate. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Luca Limatola.

Name: 2MASX J01493473+3234464, PGC 6700, UGC 1281
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Size : Dwarf
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Triangulum
Distance: 18 million light years
Release date: 24 November 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola