This is the Tarantula Nebula, which is 170,000 light years away. Relatively speaking, it’s not that far. I’ve gazed at a galaxy 25 million light years away through my telescope. Well, at least at the light it gave off back then. Makes you wonder where it is now, or if it even exists.
The image consists of a layer stack-up that spans 600 light years deep. If you feel like counting, you can expect to exceed 800,000 stars! Click the image to see what NASA has to say about it.
If you’re interested, I have a realtime Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and International Space Station (ISS) satellite tracker page on this site. Look under Astronomy and Satellite Tracking or click here. You can see them with the naked eye if you know when and where to look. I’ve seen the ISS through my telescope with a space shuttle docked to it. Pretty amazing to look and think “There are people on that.”