Titanic Sky Candy

The Lagoon Nebula has come up before. I think this view is pretty spectacular.

Rick's #Astrophotography Picture of the Day - Core of the Lagoon Nebula (NGC 6530)

Vibrant red & pink H-alpha emissions frame the cool blue/teal OIII core, woven with dense dust lanes. Sparkling at its center: the brilliant, hot young stars of NGC 6530. 🌌✨ pic.twitter.com/tLgdmh4xEZ

— Eyes to the Stars (@Eyes2TheStars) September 23, 2026

I've picked out several nice shots of the Milky Way. Remember, Dorothy, there's no place like home.

My shot of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, expanding across the night sky over the skies of Arizona. Millions of stars across the constellation of Sagittarius! Visible in the shot are the Lagoon Nebula, Trifid Nebula, Messier 7. Shot with a modded Nikon D800 and 50mm lens. pic.twitter.com/c44HY621nb

— Kyle Denny (@Kdenny_astro) September 19, 2026

This is from Antarctica. You have to imagine it was a pretty brisk night.

Milky Way from Antarctica😍 pic.twitter.com/wCiobwzaOg

— The Astronomy Guy (@astrooalert) September 22, 2026

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This isn't as flashy as some, but it's interesting — a lot of things we've seen before, all in one shot. This is looking straight into the center of the Milky Way — which we can't see because of all the dust between us and the core. That makes this the Zone of Avoidance.

My shot of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, expanding across the night sky over the skies of Arizona. Millions of stars across the constellation of Sagittarius! Visible in the shot are the Lagoon Nebula, Trifid Nebula, Messier 7. Shot with a modded Nikon D800 and 50mm lens. pic.twitter.com/c44HY621nb

— Kyle Denny (@Kdenny_astro) September 19, 2026

And several lovely shots from New Zealand. 

Astrophotography from New Zealand ✨ pic.twitter.com/OQ5VzwbSGA

— Paul (@paulwilsonimage) September 18, 2026

We also have several shots that make you think we're really out of names.

Hello Everyone, here is my latest capture: the Dog Bone Nebula (LBN 573 and LBN 575). It is located in the constellation Cepheus. It's very faint and is around 1,000 light-years from Earth. I used my Celestron RASA telescope and ZWO ASI533MC color camera. pic.twitter.com/vfozAENjO6

— Chuck's Astrophotography (@chucksastropho1) September 24, 2026

The Rotten Fish? Seriously?

Rotten Fish Nebula LDN1251, la nebulosa del peix podrit 🤩#Astrophotography 📌Manresa, bortle 6 pic.twitter.com/6sGs2W6JZe

— ricard oliveras (@ricard_oliveras) September 24, 2026

The Cosmic Blender. I haven't seen this one before, and it's become a favorite already.

On the grandest scales, galaxies drift apart as the cosmos expands—yet gravity still pulls them into close encounters, collisions, and mergers. Meet NGC 474 in Pisces, sometimes called the Cosmic Blender: a lenticular galaxy wrapped in ghostly shells and streaming tidal tails,… pic.twitter.com/Ye6lZPi8hN

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) September 25, 2026

Whenever we get a picture like this, in my head I imagine what it would look like if we could only time-lapse through it and see it moving. 

Related: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Will Answer Fundamental Questions About the Universe

Hmmm — that would make an interesting thing in an SF story — warping toward it, stopping every so often to take a picture, and so getting a sort of "time-lapse" from the speed of light.

Breathtaking cosmic scenery: A vast pillar of gas and dust rises nearly three light-years through the Carina Nebula, while intense starlight slowly eats away at its structure.

(Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) pic.twitter.com/CBTF6Uql2t

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) September 17, 2026

This is a nice shot someone basically took from home. The "Hubble Palette" means it's false color, with light from ionized sulfur mapped to red, the hydrogen-alpha light mapped to green, and oxygen ions mapped to blue.

Here we have IC-1848 the Soul Nebula in the Hubble Palette. I took this from my second floor deck in bortle 8 skies over a total of 5 hours. I'm certainly not done with this it, but I can't help myself sharing it anyways. THIS STUFF IS OUT THERE! 📷#astrophotography #astronomy pic.twitter.com/cRaPwKJfTn

— NinjaGloppy (@NGloppy) September 22, 2026

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And finally, a prize-winning shot taken from Kuwait.

This stunning cosmic predator just won Astronomy’s top prize

Kuwaiti photographer Ali Alobaidly spent two nights in the desert capturing the Shark Nebula. His image, The Quiet Predator, won the 2026 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition and a £10,000 prize pic.twitter.com/BPYZjtgr2Y

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 21, 2026

And that's it for this week. As always, watch for a new Sky Candy next Friday, the first one in October, and watch for the Sunday Supplement on, well, Sunday. Oh, and don't forget to comment and let the management know you're enjoying these.