Your Monday Photo Shoot: Back Into Space

"There wouldn't be a sky full of stars, if we were all meant to wish on the same one."

-Francis Clark

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show off a favorite space photo from NASA. Challenge for the folks who participated in the Photo Shoot last year: Pick a new photo you love. Given all the amazing photos from NASA over the years of space explorations, this shouldn't be difficult.

-John Scalzi (By The Way)

For this assignment I chose the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), which is in the constellation of Draco. According to the NASA web site, it is considered "one of the most complex nebulae known," and when viewed with the Hubble Telescope, you can see structures such as, "knots, jets, and sinewy arc-like features." It was discovered by William Herschel, on February 15th, 1786, and was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by English amateur astronomer, William Huggins, in 1864. The brightness of this nebula has been set at 8.1. It is easily seen from most of the northern hemisphere. "The nebula is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium. The features of the Cat's Eye nebula are so complex, that astronomers suspect that the bright central object might actually be a binary star system."

I really like this particular heavenly a lot, but there are other photos of space I enjoyed as well...

Helix Nebula

"The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show."

-Henry David Thoreau

Keplar's Supernova Remnant

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."

-William Shakespeare

Infared View of Saturn

"You must carry chaos inside you, to give birth to a dancing star."

-Nietzsche

The Moon (I took that photo) :)

"Every fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying."

-Harry Anderson

The Inside Of My Left Retina.

Ok, I know, I know, the inside of my left retina wasn't photographed by the Hubble Telescope, but it does help me see all that neat stuff in outer space, and here on earth as well. I thought my left eye deserved a mention. LOL. And it does kind of look like something you might see in outer space.

"Watch the stars, and learn from them

To the Master's honor all must turn,

each in it's track, without a sound

forever tracing Newton's ground."

-Albert Einstein

-OndineMonet
Information for this entry is based on an article published on the NASA web site, and Answers.com