Thor’s Helmet Nebula Glows 15,000 Light-Years Away in Stunning Deep-Space Photo

Space.com reports astrophotographer Ronald Brecher captured the 30-light-year emission nebula NGC 2359, known as Thor’s Helmet, about 15,000 light-years from Earth in Canis Major. The helmet-like bubble is sculpted by winds from a central Wolf–Rayet star; Brecher photographed it from Guelph, Canada using a Celestron 14-inch EDGE HD telescope with a monochrome camera and narrowband filters, accumulating more than 8 hours across 124 exposures and stacking the data with PixInsight to reveal the nebula’s blue glow and wing-like structures.