De imaginibus nebularum

The stars currently illuminating the homepage are found in the Carina Nebula, home to the giant star Eta Carinae. The photograph was taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope by NASA. For more information, click here.

The reddish nebula at the top of each page is a partial view of a region in the Carina Nebula known as the Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324). This nebula was named by Sir John Herschel, William's only son. The photograph was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. For more information, click here.

The previous homepage graphic (see below) was the bluish nebula (NGC 1999), a reflection nebula in Orion that was discovered by German-born English astronomer Sir William Herschel (discoverer of Uranus and founder of modern stellar astronomy) and his sister Caroline as they were cataloguing deep-sky objects in the late 1700s. The photograph was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.For more information on this image, click here.