Astrophoto: Take a 3-D Journey Inside the Bubble Nebula

We’ve featured the unique 3-D work of J-P Metsävainio previously, but it’s time to check in and see what he’s been working on lately. Metsävainio creates incredible 3-D animations from his own astronomical images, which he calls “3-D experiments” that are a mixture of science and an artistic impression. “I collect distance and other information before I do my 3-D conversion,” he told Universe Today via email earlier this year. “Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can fine tune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object.”

Above is the animation of the Bubble Nebula, below is his extremely detailed image:

His observations and images are simply stunning, but he says his 3-D animations are “a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.”

Read about his imaging and processing techniques for the Bubble Nebula image here.

You can check out more of his images and animations on his website and on his YouTube channel.