APOD: Andromeda On The Rocks

Today's APOD was completely stunning, upon opening the website and expecting to dig through the archives for a stunning snapshot, I came across Andromeda On The Rocks and could not ignore the visual.

The picture above was taken from eastern Italy, near Monte Conero on the Adriatic sea coast and captures the Andromeda Galaxy. Truly amazing.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

APOD Reaction: Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur

There is far more to this Astronomy Picture of Day (posted June 4, 2013) than it's mundane title would suggest. The dynamic haze set in front of the stars is so brilliantly placed, the Orion Nebula more closely resembles a painting in this photo. As I viewed this picture, I didn't really think of it as "the Nebula's glowing gas surrounding hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud" (description exert). When reaching the end of its caption, it was somewhat sad to be informed that the whole Orion Nebula cloud complex will disperse over the next 100,000 years.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130604.html