In August 2025, astrophotographer Rod Prazeres received a strange Instagram message that seemed a little too good to be true — a "small production company" wanted to license his images for use in an undisclosed sci-fi movie.

Prazeres' initially — and reasonably — assumed that he was being scammed. After all, how many production companies and movie studios approach collaborators by sliding into their DMs and asking for space pics? Several months and a binding non-disclosure agreement later, his images would appear on the silver screen as a magnificent backdrop for the credits of Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling-fronted adaptation of Andy Weir's beloved novel of the same name.

Project Hail Mary launched to both critical acclaim and impressive box office earnings earlier in March. More impressively, it managed to maintain a sense of charm and wonder at the cosmos throughout its 156-minute runtime that compelled us here at Space.com to praise it as the optimistic look towards the stars that humanity needs right now. The film also drew heavily from real-world biology, space exploration and science, which grounded the blockbuster's fantastic story in reality and an air of authenticity. Prazeres' astrophotography — and the drive to showcase real deep space images over CGI as the credits rolled — added to that sense of authenticity.

"So the first thing I thought was, you know, it's a scam," Prazeres told Space.com in an interview. “The second thing I thought was that maybe it was for a local film, or something tied to a local festival. Since he mentioned the company name, I went online to look up both him and the company to check that it was genuine.” Prazeres went on to create what he jokingly called a "dossier" on the company to determine if they were genuine.

Next followed a series of conference calls, accompanied by the signing of an NDA. For months, Prazeres and the production company discussed using his images for a sequence earlier in the movie, but as the producers' creative vision shifted, things began to look uncertain.

"They got back to me and said, oh, you know, it may not be going ahead," recalled Prazeres, "but there may be a place to [work with] some of these materials for something else" Weeks later, the production company broached the possibility of using Prazeres' deep space imagery to close out the blockbuster movie.

The chain of events is all the more noteworthy given the relatively brief time that Prazeres has been capturing the night sky. His first experience of deep sky astrophotography came in July 2023 when he captured a view of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17), which glows in the constellation Sagittarius 5,500 light-years from Earth, according to NASA. The years that followed saw Prazeres embark on a personal journey to research and learn the craft, which saw him attend multiple workshops with veteran astrophotographers. One of Prazeres' nebula shots was even shortlisted for the Best Newcomer award in the Royal Observatory Greenwich's 2024 Astrophotographer of the Year competition, eight months into his astro training.

Of course, working with Amazon MGM Studios to help illustrate a major blockbuster was on an entirely different level from anything that had come before, and all because his photography had drawn the eyes of a production company searching Google Images for views of the Milky Way. "Never in a million years would I have expected that to happen, even if I had 10 years experience, 20 experience, let alone two and a half?"

The images selected for the credit sequence took a cumulative 396 hours to capture using two telescopes, a William Optics RedCat 51 II and a Askar 130PHQ, in conjunction with a host of specialized ZWO astronomy cameras, filters and peripherals.

The images include some of the most famous nebulas in the night sky such as the Carina Nebula, the Fighting Dragons of Ara and the distinctive Vela Supernova Remnant, each of which was painstakingly edited to bring out spectacular detail in the deep space vistas.

However, for all the structural beauty of the swirling clouds of dust and gas, one key element was intentionally omitted — none of the images used in Project Hail Mary's credit sequence contained a single star. The stellar bodies, which are central to the plot of the sci-fi epic, were intentionally removed during the editing stage using special astrophotography software to prevent them from interfering with the foreground subtitles.

"It's relatively simple to do it," explained Prazeres. "You've just got to make sure it's done without, you know, damaging anything in the image and not adding or altering anything from the underlying data".

Prazeres finally went to see Project Hail Mary a few days ahead of the worldwide release, surrounded by his wife, children and extended family having been bound for months not to share his experience of contributing to the movie with those around him.

"You know, it is a creative process that the producers could have just woken up one day and decided black screen on credits is perfectly fine and not move on," reasoned Prazeres. "So that whole situation, all these months of keeping this to myself and working with the studio to get it going, it was very nerve wracking. But now that it's out there, I'm just, yeah, there's no feeling to describe it."

Inspired to begin your own astrophotography journey? Then be sure to check out our roundups of the best lenses and cameras for astrophotography, along with our beginner's guide to photographing the night sky.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Astrophotographer Greg Meyer has captured a magnificent view of the Flaming Star Nebula blazing in the night sky some 1,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer.

Meyer's image appears to show a maelstrom of fire leaping away from the colossal star AE Aurigae, whose dramatic appearance has earned it the nickname of the "flaming star". In reality, the fiery glow is caused by radiation pouring out from the energetic star, which ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas, stripping it of electrons and causing it to glow with its own light.

AE Aurigae is a so-called runaway star. Scientists think it was born in the Trapezium cluster at the heart of the Orion Nebula, before being forcefully ejected following an interaction with a binary-star system some 1.5 million years ago, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The bottom of the image is dominated by the "Tadpole Nebula" (IC410), which resembles a blue cosmic pond in the false-color image. Two tadpole-shaped columns of yellow dust and gas appear to swim towards the nebula's glowing center, sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from nearby young stars.

Meyer captured the scene in mid-January using a Radian Raptor 61 mm telescope paired with an astronomy camera and filters, plus supporting peripherals while under dark Arizona skies.

Just under 21 hours' worth of light data was collected and then compiled using a combination of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and the specialized astrophotography software PixInsight. The payoff? A sprawling nebula scene stretching light-years in diameter, revealed in extraordinary detail far beyond what the human eye can see.

Inspired to start your own astrophotography journey? Then be sure to read our guides to the best cameras and lenses for capturing the night sky. While you're at it why not also peruse our picks of the best telescopes for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Astrophotographer Joel Martin captured a gorgeous view of the Orion Nebula (M42) shining 1,500 light-years from Earth, revealing spectacular detail in the stellar nursery as it hung in the winter skies over the seaside village of Del Mar in California.

Martin's image highlights the nebula's chaotic, radiation-sculpted structure, whose cosmic dust and gas are being actively shaped by the thousands of energetic young stars that coalesced within its roiling expanse.

The Orion Nebula's core has been excavated in part by the ultraviolet light cast out by a collection of four colossal young stars known collectively as the "Trapezium", named for their resemblance to the geometric shape.

The nebula's close proximity to Earth has made it a popular target for astronomers looking to unravel the complex environment in which new stars like our sun are born. Scientists have even used powerful observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope to capture images of protoplanetary disks surrounding newborn stellar bodies, much like the one our own solar system formed from some 4.5 billion years ago.

Martin captured the nebula's light over the course of three hours in December 2025 using a 6-inch (157 mm) Newtonian reflector paired with a set of narrow-band filters, which only permitted light from specific wavelengths to be collected. "There has been a staggering amount of rain in Southern California and I had to grab the few hours of clear skies when I could, so I was battling light pollution, clouds, dew and the moon," Martin told Space.com in an email.

The light collected using each filter was then assigned its own color "channel" during the editing process using the astrophotography program PixInsight. "My personal aesthetic is to render images as close as possible to what your eyes could see if they were as sensitive as an astronomical camera," continued Martin. "Thus, I used the average OIII signal for green and blue and the sum of SII and H-alpha for red".

How to see the Orion Nebula

January is the best time of the year to see the Great Orion Nebula as it climbs high overhead in the winter sky. Look to the southeastern horizon in the hours following sunset in mid-January to find the recognizable stars of the constellation Orion. Next locate the three stars of the Orion's Belt asterism.

Look less than 5 degrees — roughly the span of your three middle fingers held at arm's length — to the lower right of the bottom most star Alnitak to find a tighter line of three stars representing "Orion's Sword". The fuzzy patch of light surrounding the middle star is Orion's Nebula, which is visible to the naked eye on clear nights.

If you're inspired to explore it yourself, check out our roundups of the best telescopes for exploring the night sky and photographers can find our top picks for the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your deep space astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s) and comments along with your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Nebulae are some of the most breathtaking sights in the universe — vast clouds of gas and dust where stars are born, or where they meet their spectacular ends. From the delicate wisps of the Veil Nebula to the fiery glow of the Orion Nebula, each one tells a story written across light‑years.

Astronomers study nebulae not just for their beauty, but for the secrets they hold about stellar evolution and the chemical makeup of galaxies. For the rest of us, they're a reminder that the cosmos is both mysterious and magnificent, with colors and shapes that look more like art than science.

But how well do you really know your nebulae?Matching names to these celestial wonders is trickier than it sounds.

Whether you're a seasoned stargazer or just curious about the night sky, this is your chance to prove you’re ready for a cosmic pop quiz.

See how well you score below!

Kentucky-based astrophotographer David Joyce has shared a glorious deep space vista revealing the fossil light of a vast supernova remnant created in the death throes of an enormous star some 10,000 years ago.

Joyce's nebula scene captures the expanding shell of the supernova remnant CTB 1, also known as both the Garlic Nebula and the Medulla Nebula for its resemblance to both the bulbous plant and the human brain.

The bubble-like form of the Garlic Nebula lies within the Milky Way some 9,132 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. The nebula has been observed shining in radio, X-ray and visible light, as the cloud of stellar material pushed outward by a supernova explosion 10,000 years ago comes into contact with the mass of interstellar gas beyond.

The cataclysmic explosion that spawned the supernova remnant simultaneously gave rise to a superdense pulsar, which was discovered in 2009 by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope travelling at 2.5 million miles per hour (4 million km/h) away from the site of its birth.

"This was relatively difficult to capture from my light polluted suburban backyard under Bortle 7 skies," Joyce told Space.com in an email. "The Garlic Nebula is rather faint which is why I dedicated over 50 hours of exposure time to try to bring out more detail."

Joyce captured the ancient light from the Medulla Nebula using an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope fitted with a ZWO astronomy camera augmented with a host of peripherals and filters from his home in Lexington, Kentucky over the course of seven clear nights in September earlier this year. The light data was then post-processed using astronomy software to create a spectacular nebula spacescape.

"I have wanted to image this supernova remnant since I started with astrophotography in 2020 but was never able to get it framed up just right with the equipment I had as it is so large in apparent size (almost exactly the size of a full moon) in the sky," continued Joyce. "After purchasing a new camera a couple of years ago with a larger sensor, I was finally able to get this object framed up as I had envisioned with my 8" telescope for a close up view. I just had to wait for the right time of year and conditions which all fell into place last month."

Interested in trying your hand at imaging the night sky? Then be sure to read our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography. Stargazers may also want to check out our guides to the top telescope and binocular deals available in 2025.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your deep space astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), along with your name and the location of your shoot to spacephotos@space.com.

Astrophotographer Greg Meyer has captured a star-studded nebula scene that conjures the image of a colossal baboon raging in the depths of space.

The outline of the cosmic simian's mouth and face are sculpted from a colossal cloud of molecular dust located some 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Corona Australis, while the blue glowing eyes are formed from blue reflection nebulas.

The region is colloquially referred to as the Rampaging Baboon Nebula due to its resemblance to the colorful face of a Mandrill. It can be seen in Earth's sky close to the globular cluster NGC 6723, which is visible to the upper right of Meyer's deep-space vista. The cluster sits some 30,000 light-years away from the solar system and contains hundreds of thousands, if not millions of stars.

Meyer captured the scene over the course of 13 nights spread throughout June, July and August earlier this year using an Esprit 120mm telescope in conjunction with a QHY 268M astronomy camera and accessories from the Starfront Observatory in Texas.

A grand total of 16.5 hours observation time was needed to collect the ancient light, after which the astrophotographer set about editing the image in Photoshop, Lightroom and Pixinsight.

"I saw images with some oxygen, but OMG it [was] faint," Meyer told Space.com in an email. "I kept shooting, and finally said enough. My scope is f7, so even with 200 x 10 min [exposures] the oxygen was faint, so I did my best to bring it out a little for some contrast."

Interested in capturing the nebulas and galaxies of the universe for yourself? Then be sure to check out our roundups of the best telescopes and astrophotography cameras and lenses available in 2025.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

A nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust located in the space between stars. Nebula is Latin for "mist, vapor, fog, smoke, exhalation," but in an astronomical context, it refers to any celestial object that appears cloud-like when viewed through a telescope.

Some nebulas are formed when gas and dust are thrown out during a supernova —an explosion of a dying star, while other nebulas form through clouds of cold interstellar gas and dust. When these regions become dense enough they can spawn new stars, which is why nebulas are sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries." 

Nebulas come in many shapes and sizes and can be further divided into several subcategories including planetary nebulas, supernova remnants, dark nebulas and emission nebulas. 

When telescopes weren't as powerful as today, this term encompassed galaxies such as our neighbor Andromeda, often referred to as the "Andromeda nebula". 

However, with the benefit of modern telescopes, we know that galaxies aren't cloud-like at all, but made up of billions of stars. This means astronomers now reserve the word nebula for genuine clouds — of gas and dust — located inside our own galaxy.

Related: What is the Eagle Nebula?

Where are nebula located?

Nebula are often found in the space between stars, known as the interstellar medium. On average, this region contains only around one atom per cubic centimetre. However, in certain places the density can be significantly higher than this ⁠— high enough to become visible through a telescope. 

The result is what we call a nebula, and they are among the most spectacular sights in astronomy. In fact many of the most iconic Hubble telescope images, such as the "Pillars of Creation", are images of nebula.

There are several different types of nebula, depending on how they form and their composition. Most nebula are primarily made of gas, which is able to glow with its own light, creating the colorful displays with which we are familiar . 

But other nebula ⁠— such as the so-called "dark nebula" ⁠— are much dustier in their composition, and rather than glowing this dust has the effect of blocking the light from more distant objects beyond it.

What are the different types of nebula?

The relationship between nebula and stars

Nebula play a key role in the life cycle of stars, both at their birth and death. Stars are born in dense clumps of gas, dust, and other material inside diffuse emission nebulae, also frequently referred to as "stellar nurseries". 

Hubble’s Pillars of Creation is in this category, as is the famous Orion Nebula ⁠— which you may well have seen for yourself through binoculars or a small telescope. 

The principal force at work here is gravity, which causes the tenuous interstellar medium to condense into a nebula, and gravity that causes clumps inside the nebula to collapse down into stars.

At the other end of a star’s life, we encounter a different type of emission nebula. Stars like the sun end their lives as highly compact white dwarfs, but as they shrink down into this phase they release clouds of gas which form a so-called "planetary nebula". This is a rather misleading name, because such nebula have nothing to do with planets.

Unlike diffuse emission nebula, these have a more clearly defined appearance, usually circular in shape, which reminded William Herschel of a planet when he first observed them in the 1780s.

Not all stars end their days in the relative serenity of a planetary nebula. A star that’s much more massive than the sun will eventually explode as a supernova, and the debris flung out from that explosion forms yet another kind of nebula called a supernova remnant. The most famous of these is the Crab Nebula, which is all that remains of a spectacular supernova that was observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054.

Seeing nebulas in living color

To capture the spectacular nature of nebulae, telescopes — such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST) — use infrared radiation emitted by nebulae to create an image.   

The visible light emitted by stars forming in and around a nebula can be blocked by the dense cosmic clouds of gas and dust that make up a nebula. Therefore, scientists must look to other wavelengths of light that are emitted from the nebula, such as infrared radiation. 

Infrared cameras onboard the JWST have relieved some of the most detailed images of nebulae, such as the Southern Ring planetary nebula. The Southern Ring nebula — also known as NGC 3132 — is around 2,500 light-years away from Earth and home to a dying star at its core. 

Using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the JWST has captured one of the most detailed images of the nebula. In the two images above, JWST has captured layers of gas and dust within the Southern Ring Nebula. Each layer has been created by the expulsion of cosmic matter from the central dying star. 

Additional resources

For more information about nebulae, check out "The Hubble Legacy: 30 Years of Discoveries and Image", by Jim Bell and "Planetary Nebulae and How to Observe Them (Astronomers' Observing Guides)", by Martin Griffiths. 

Bibliography

• The Planets, "Nebula Facts – A Guide To Nebulae", accessed July 2022. 
• Universe Today, "Nebulae: What Are They And Where Do They Come From?", accessed July 2022. 
• The University of Utah, "Nebula", accessed July 2022. 
• Australia Telescope National Facility, "Star Formation", July 2022. 
• Cosmos, "Emission Nebula", accessed July 2022. 
• James Miller, "What Are Nebulae And How Are They Formed?", Astronomy Trek, December 2014. 
• Andy Briggs, "What is a supernova", EarthSky, November 2020. 

Astronomers have captured a new photo of a two-faced nebulathat appears dark on one side and bright on the other.

The new photo shows a striking view of the nebula, which is a gathering of gas, dustand stars about 22,000 light-years away from Earth. The little-known celestialobject, called Gum 19, is illuminated by an extremely huge, hot star calledV391 Velorum.

The surface temperature of this star is a scorching 54,000degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 degrees Celsius). It gives off mostly blue light,and its brightness can fluctuate wildly as a result of its dynamic nature andejections of outer layers of gas.

Since stars that burn so brightly don't usually last verylong (they "live fast and die young"), V391 Velorum is expected todie violently in a supernovaexplosion after a total lifetime of about ten million years ? relativelyshort on a cosmic scale.

V391 Velorum is illuminating one half of the nebulain a bright blue glow, while the other side appears shaded in a dusty red haze.Along the boundary between the two halves, scientists think new stars are beingborn in areas called HII ("H-two") regions, which are spots wherehydrogen gas has been heated up to the point that the atoms lose theirelectrons. Bright HII regions often denote areas of active starformation, where gas and dust collapse under their own weight and beginnuclear fusion, igniting as new stars.

The new photo of Gum 19 was captured by an infrared cameracalled SOFI on the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope atthe La Silla Observatory in Chile.

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