Saturnebula!

This is a depiction of a pair of the most conspicuous objects in the night sky (after major solar system objects). On the left is shown one the most recognizable nebulae of all, the Horsehead Nebula. On the right, the Orion Nebula, an object bright enough to easily seen by the naked eye – it appears as the middle “star” in Orion’s sword. Both are, in fact, parts of the vast Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, an object which, despite being about 1300 light years away, has an apparent size similar to your outstretched hand held at arm’s length in the direction of the constellation of Orion. (Which itself is one of the easiest to find and recognizable patterns in the night sky.) This is one of the most beautiful and keenly observed objects in astronomy. It's a stellar nursery, (in other words a molecular cloud in which stars are actively forming) the closest such in existence, and studied pretty closely as a result.

This is an APOD image. Click the image here for the APOD page, click the image there for a detailed view.

Bow Shock

More cool astronomy, this time from Nasa's Image of the Day gallery. The border between the outgoing stellar wind from young star LL Ori and gas evaporating from the vast Orion Nebula (if you hold out your hand at arms length against the night sky, that's a pretty good approximation of the subjective extent of that complex from our point of view) create a shock wave at their boundary, anologous to a 3D version of the wave formed at the bow of boat when it moves independently of the current.