Image of the Week
Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers
Heavy-Metal Stars
The 10.5-billion-year-old globular cluster, NGC 6496, is home to heavy-metal stars of a celestial kind. They are enriched with much higher proportions of metals than stars found in similar clusters.
—NASA Goddard, USA
26 Jul 2024
Sub-Pixel Colors in Silica Gel
Transparent silica gel balls, familiar desiccants for food, glitter with sub-pixel colors when placed on a smartphone screen.
—Tsuneo Horiguchi, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
19 Jul 2024
Chemical Art
Thin crystalline film of cesium chloride imaged in compensated polarized light microscopy, magnification 100×.
—Karl Gaff, Art of Science Photography, Dublin, Ireland, Wiki Science Competition 2021; CC-BY-4.0
12 Jul 2024
Dispersion of Sunlight
Dispersion of sunlight through glass doors at the ITESO library in Guadalajara, Mexico.
—Natalith Palacios-Ortega, ITESO, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
05 Jul 2024
Life Still Shining
Fluorescent image of a shriveled cabbage core, illuminated with a 375-nm-UV LED (NICHIA) and detected with a compact camera (RICHO, WG-6) through a UV-cut filter (Kenko Tokina, Zeta UVL41), exposure 1/4 s and ISO 6400.
—Yasunori Saito, formerly with Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan
28 Jun 2024
Infinite Depth
At AYA, an immersive entertainment park in Dubai, UAE, a room filled with ever-changing LED stripes is completely lined with mirrors, giving the appearance of infinite depth.
—Michael Duncan, Senior Science Advisor, Optica
21 Jun 2024
Green Fire
A light sheet generated with a laser passes through a turbulent flow of humid air.
—Emiliano Hernández Figueroa, Instituto de Energías Renovables de la UNAM, Temixco, Mexico
14 Jun 2024
Euclid's Messier 78
In this image released on 23 May 2024, ESA’s Euclid space mission peers deep into Messier 78 (the central and brightest region) using its infrared camera, exposing hidden regions of star formation for the first time.
—ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi
07 Jun 2024
Rainbow Meets Monochrome
Light refracted through a glass door onto black-and-white tiles with geometric shapes creates a vivid spectrum.
—Edgar Guevara, CONAHCYT-UASLP, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
31 May 2024
Droplets on Display
Close-up image of water droplets on a smartphone screen with a light gray background. The droplets show individual pixel colors and also reflect light sources in the room.
—Dirk Voigt, Ministry of Defence, Utrecht, Netherlands
24 May 2024