A dusty spiral in Virgo: This magnificent new image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4206, located about 70 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo. Captured here are vast streaks of dust, some of which are obscuring the central bulge, which can just be made out in the centre of the galaxy. Towards the edges of the galaxy, the scattered clumps, which appear blue in this image, mark areas where stars are being born. The bulge, on the other hand, is composed mostly of much older, redder stars, and very little star formation takes place. NGC 4206 was imaged as part of a Hubble snapshot survey of nearby edge-on spiral galaxies to measure the effect that the material between the stars — known as the interstellar medium — has on light as it travels through it. Using its Advanced Camera for Surveys, Hubble can reveal information about the dusty material and hydrogen gas in the cold parts of the interstellar medium. Astronomers are then able to map the absorption and scattering of light by the material — an effect known as extinction — which causes objects to appear redder to us, the observers. NGC 4206 is visible with most moderate amateur telescopes at 13th magnitude. It was discovered by Hanoverian-born British astronomer, William Herschel on 17 April 1784. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Nick Rose.

Name: NGC 4206
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Distance: 70 million light years
Release date: 6 October 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Nick Rose

Turquoise-tinted plumes in the Large Magellanic Cloud: The brightly glowing plumes seen in this image are reminiscent of an underwater scene, with turquoise-tinted currents and nebulous strands reaching out into the surroundings. However, this is no ocean. This image actually shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy that orbits our galaxy, the Milky Way, and appears as a blurred blob in our skies. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has peeked many times into this galaxy, releasing stunning images of the whirling clouds of gas and sparkling stars (opo9944a, heic1301, potw1408a). This image shows part of the Tarantula Nebula's outskirts. This famously beautiful nebula, located within the LMC, is a frequent target for Hubble (heic1206, heic1402). In most images of the LMC the colour is completely different to that seen here. This is because, in this new image, a different set of filters was used. The customary R filter, which selects the red light, was replaced by a filter letting through the near-infrared light. In traditional images, the hydrogen gas appears pink because it shines most brightly in the red. Here however, other less prominent emission lines dominate in the blue and green filters. This data is part of the Archival Pure Parallel Project (APPP), a project that gathered together and processed over 1000 images taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, obtained in parallel with other Hubble instruments. Much of the data in the project could be used to study a wide range of astronomical topics, including gravitational lensing and cosmic shear, exploring distant star-forming galaxies, supplementing observations in other wavelength ranges with optical data, and examining star populations from stellar heavyweights all the way down to solar-mass stars. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Josh Barrington.

Name: Large Magellanic Cloud
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Irregular
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Dorado
Distance: 150000 light years
Release date: 13 October 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Josh Barrington

The whirling disc of NGC 4526: This neat little galaxy is known as NGC 4526. Its dark lanes of dust and bright diffuse glow make the galaxy appear to hang like a halo in the emptiness of space in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Although this image paints a picture of serenity, the galaxy is anything but. It is one of the brightest lenticular galaxies known, a category that lies somewhere between spirals and ellipticals. It has hosted two known supernova explosions, one in 1969 and another in 1994, and is known to have a colossal supermassive black hole at its centre that has the mass of 450 million Suns. NGC 4526 is part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Ground-based observations of galaxies in this cluster have revealed that a quarter of these galaxies seem to have rapidly rotating discs of gas at their centres. The most spectacular of these is this galaxy, NGC 4526, whose spinning disc of gas, dust, and stars reaches out uniquely far from its heart, spanning some 7% of the galaxy's entire radius. This disc is moving incredibly fast, spinning at more than 250 kilometres per second. The dynamics of this quickly whirling region were actually used to infer the mass of NGC 4526’s central black hole — a technique that had not been used before to constrain a galaxy’s central black hole. This image was taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt. Hidden Treasures was an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public.

Name: NGC 4526
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Lenticular
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Release date: 20 October 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

A galaxy on the edge: This spectacular image was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The bright streak slicing across the frame is an edge-on view of galaxy NGC 4762, and a number of other distant galaxies can be seen scattered in the background. NGC 4762 lies about 58 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). It is part of the Virgo Cluster, hence its alternative designation of  VCC 2095 for Virgo Cluster Catalogue entry. This catalogue is a listing of just over 2000 galaxies in the area of the Virgo Cluster. The Virgo Cluster is actually prominently situated, and lies at the centre of the larger Virgo supercluster, of which our galaxy group, the Local Group, is a member. Previously thought to be a barred spiral galaxy, NGC 4762 has since been found to be a lenticular galaxy, a kind of intermediate step between an elliptical and a spiral. The edge-on view that we have of this particular galaxy makes it difficult to determine its true shape, but astronomers have found the galaxy to consist of four main components — a central bulge, a bar, a thick disc and an outer ring. The galaxy's disc is asymmetric and warped, which could potentially be explained by NGC 4762 violently cannibalising a smaller galaxy in the past. The remains of this former companion may then have settled within NGC 4762's disc, redistributing the gas and stars and so changing the disc's morphology. NGC 4762 also contains a Liner-type Active Galactic Nucleus, a highly energetic central region. This nucleus is detectable due to its particular spectral line emission, which acts as a type of "atomic fingerprint", allowing astronomers to measure the composition of the region.

Name: NGC 4762
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Lenticular
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Distance: 60 million light years
Release date: 27 October 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA