Ireneusz Nowak is the author of NASA's photo of the day

Polish astrophotographer Ireneusz Nowak has been named the NASA photo of the day. His photograph shows a section of the Milky Way and the Zeta and Rho Ophiuchi nebulae. The frame was taken in South Africa.

The Pole received the title of NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) on May 27.

In the image, which looks like a colorful, abstract painting, in addition to a section of the Milky Way and two nebulae, you can see the bright star Antares, the globular star cluster M4, and the nebula IC 4592, also known as the Blue Horsehead. The red light in the image comes from the nebulae in the glow of excited hydrogen, while the blue color is interstellar dust that reflects the light of bright young stars.

"The photo was taken during an astrophotography trip to a farm in the tourist region of Waterberg in South Africa. It consists of 14 frames in total and covers quite a significant piece of the sky. Obtaining the final effect required several days of photography and took about 2 months of work, with breaks, devoted to processing the collected material to obtain the final effect" - Ireneusz Nowak reported to PAP.

The Zeta and Rho Ophiuchi nebulae are among the most photographed parts of the sky. Zeta Ophiuchi and Rho Ophiuchi are stars in the constellation Ophiuchus; the nebulae near them also bear the same names. The Zeta Ophiuchi nebula is a huge field of ionized, red-glowing hydrogen; Rho Ophiuchi is a dark nebula of dust and gas.

"Rho Ophiuchi and this entire region is very popular because it is an amazing composition of all possible objects and colors that we can come across in astrophotography. There are countless dust nebulae there, which appear in the photo both in brown, and often take on the color from the stars that illuminate them - orange, yellow, blue. In addition, there is red from the emission hydrogen nebulae, and fragments of the Milky Way. The whole thing creates an incredibly colorful set that looks like a painted picture, not like an object created by nature," described the astrophotographer.

Ireneusz Nowak has been honored by NASA for the second time. On October 2, 2024, his photograph of the Large Magellanic Cloud was honored with the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) title.

Polish authors are relatively often awarded the NASA APOD title. Recently, they were: Marzena Rogozińska (May 20), Wioleta Gorecka (March 30) and Włodzimierz Bubak (December 28 last year). In turn, three-time APOD winner Marcin Rosadziński was recently recognized as the best photographer of the Milky Way in 2025 by the international group of professional astrophotographers Capture the Atlas.

"Maybe it's not a Polish specialty, but we simply have a group of people without complexes, with open minds and growing skills, ready to travel to interesting places and spend many evenings to achieve a dream photo. Watching photos of colleagues in different groups, you can see the constantly growing level of work and the hunger to obtain more and more beautiful frames," commented Ireneusz Nowak.

Astronomy Picture of the Day, abbreviated as APOD, is a service run by NASA, where one photo of astronomical objects or astrolandscapes appears every day. The service has been run since 1995, and placing a photo there is a great honor for astrophotographers. (PAP)

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