Astrophotographer spies Thor's Helmet shining 15,000 light-years away in spectacular photo

The god of thunder appears to have misplaced his helmet in a new deep-space photo from Ronald Brecher, which captured glorious detail in a nebula scene surrounding a colossal star shining 15,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Canis Major, the "Great Dog".

Brecher's image reveals the 30-light-year-wide emission nebula NGC 2359, whose bubble-like form was sculpted by the stellar wind blasting out from the colossal Wolf-Rayet star at its heart. The stellar giant is estimated to be 16 times more massive and 280,000 times brighter than the sun, according to the Lowell Observatory.

A pair of wing-like nebula structures sweep away from NGC 2359's central bubble, giving it the appearance of a vast cosmic helmet remarkably similar to that worn by Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

The burst of activity that formed NGC 2359 — also known as Thor's Helmet — is merely the precursor to the cataclysmic natural light show to follow, when the ageing Wolf-Rayet star ends its life in a supernova explosion that will reshape the nearby interstellar environment.

Brecher captured the ionized glow of the distant nebula using a Celestron 14-inch EDGE HD telescope with a monochrome astronomy camera fitted with a series of narrowband filters in the skies over the city of Guelph,Canada, from March 8-13, 2026.

A little over 8 hours and 124 camera exposures went into the creation of the gorgeous deep space image, which was carefully stacked and processed using the astronomy software PixInsight. "I didn't think I could capture Thor's Helmet from my location," Brecher told Space.com in an email. "It skimmed the trees through my most light-polluted skies, awash in the glow of the Guelph's Auto Mall. But here we are!"

Want to capture your own deep space images? Then be sure to check out our beginner's guide to shooting the night sky with a DSLR camera and peruse our roundups of the best camera bodies and lenses for astrophotography if you're looking to upgrade your gear!

Editor's Note: Do you want to share your nebula photos with Space.com's readers? Then please send your photo(s) and comments, along with your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.