Astrophotographer captures colorful portrait of the Lion Nebula in a glowing field of hydrogen gas

A nebula rages in space with brilliant hues of red and blue.

Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical "Skyscapes" that connect both Earth and the night sky.

This photo shows the Lion Nebula, also known as Sh2-132, located at about 10,000 light-years away in the Cepheus constellation. Formed from expanded shells of gases, the nebula is powered by two massive stars, each with a mass over 20 times greater than our sun.

The image was taken at the Dark Sky Alqueva Observatory in Cumeada, Portugal with the New ZEUS 455C Pro. from Player One Astronomy.

Captured in both HaOIII (hydrogen-alpha and oxygen-III bands) and RGB (red, green and blue) light, the image features a deep wide field view of Sh2-132 immersed in the glow of ionized hydrogen gas.

(Image credit: Miguel Claro)

The nebula's energetic matter is dense enough to contract under gravitational forces and form stars. In the photograph, one side of the nebula is more predominant of reddish hues from the hydrogen-alpha emission, while the other one displays more predominantly bluish hues from ionized oxygen in OIII emission.

Related: Astrophotographer captures extraordinary footage of the ISS flying in front of the sun

An annotated photo of the Veil Nebula, the Witch's Broom Nebula (NGC 6960) Fleming's Triangular Wisp (NGC 6979), and NGC 6974, a large nebula filament. (Image credit: Miguel Claro)

This wide field view covers an area of the sky slightly larger than the angular size of the full moon in the sky as seen from Earth. Within this image, we can also see small planetary nebulas like PK104-01.1 and PK104-01.2 or the 1.0-arc-minute small planetary nebula Abell 79. Open cluster NGC 7226, consisting of a faint group with 25-30 stars, is visible on the right side of the image

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