Colorful stars and clouds of gas and dust in visible and near-infrared light. The bright, blueish cloud on the left is NGC 1936, and the bright, white cluster of stars and cloud on the right is NGC 1935.

The reasons for the different colors can be difficult to discern, but in general: Dark, brownish areas are dark dust. Bright, red areas can be warm dust, hydrogen alpha emission or dust-reddened stars and young stellar objects. Blue areas are probably dominated by [O III] emission or reflection. White areas are likely a mixture. Remember that with infrared imagery, context is just as important as color for determining what you're looking at.

These two objects are a particularly beautiful part of a larger structure referred to as LHA 120-N44, or N44 for short, which is a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. N44 is described as a superbubble due to the void it has cleared away at its center, visible as the dark patch at the upper left of the image. The dusty brown cloud in the middle is full of little red dots which are young stellar objects or dust-obscured stars.

The near-infrared data really only covers the upper left 2/3rd of the image or so, but the composition benefited greatly by extending the frame to the right. I blended the 3-color region into the 2-color region using the channel mixer and curves to smooth out the edges where the filters didn't match up in brightness. Some of the stars I ended up giving a red coloration to them in this area because they looked strangely yellow, and because they would have been bright red had the near-infrared data extended to them anyway. In any case, I doubt anyone who knows what I'm talking about really gives a damn.

This image is a small part of the mosaic created for the MYSST program. I find these data to be exquisite even for Hubble and most pleasant to work with. The near-infrared bit is just a happy coincidence added in from a parallel observation.

MYSST: Mapping Young Stars in Space and Time - The HII Complex N44 in the LMC

A Direct CO/H2 Abundance Measurement in Diffuse and Translucent LMC and SMC Molecular Clouds

Red: WFC3/IR F160W Green: WFC3/UVIS F814W Blue: WFC3/UVIS F555W