A ‘rampaging lion’ nebula roars to life in a stunning deep-space photo

A nebula takes on the appearance of a rampaging lion in a new deep space vista captured by astrophotographer Ronald Brecher under a near-full moon from his home in Ontario, Canada, in October earlier this year.

The evocative scene captures the swirling gas of the nebula Sh2-132, known as the Lion Nebula, located around 10,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cepheus, which you can find high above the northern horizon in the hours following sunset in November.

Within the nebula are two gigantic stars, each of which boasts a mass equivalent to 20 suns, the radiation from which has ionized and sculpted the vast cloud of interstellar dust and gas, causing it to glow with its own eerie light.

It took Brecher a little over 35 hours to capture the nebula using his Sky-Watcher Esprit 70 EDX refractor and astronomy camera, along with a host of peripherals and astronomy filters, each designed to capture a specific part of the light spectrum

Brecher used the same observational data to create two different, visually striking versions scene. For one image, he opted to use the Hubble palette in the post-processing stage, which assigned a color to each of the specific wavelength bands of light collected by the astronomy filters to recreate the iconic look of images produced by the space telescope. The Foraxx palette, meanwhile, adopts a more dynamic approach to interpreting and combining the light data, producing a richer, more dramatic color rendering

Want to capture breathtaking images of the night sky for yourself? Then be sure to check out our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography, along with our guide to capturing the night sky with a DSLR.

Editor’s Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.