This collection of breathtaking space photography offers a humbling and awe-inspiring glimpse into the cosmos. The images are so strikingly beautiful that they almost feel otherworldly—perfect for a high-quality coffee table book. This is a volume meant to be savoured, with each page inviting you to pause and admire the grandeur of the universe.
The accompanying text strikes a fine balance, offering light yet engaging explanations that are accessible even to those with only a passing interest in astronomy. While it doesn’t dive deeply into scientific intricacies, it serves as a perfect complement to the visuals, adding context without overwhelming the reader.
A true visual treasure, this book is a must-have for anyone who appreciates the beauty of space and wants a stunning centrepiece for their collection.

Thank you Collins Astronomy for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own

What does ten billion dollars get you these days? Stuff like this, as we see the author's pick of the best images from the James Webb Space Telescope's first two years of operation. Here are dazzling images of star formation, bubbles hundreds of light years across lit up and energised by supernovae within them, jets of gas containing life-giving molecules. Closer to home there are recognisable elements of our solar system, elsewhere pinpricks are galaxies that existed within 500 million years of the Big Bang, and have aged inexorably since the light the JWST saw left them.

A lot of this would easily have been on a hippie's bedroom wall back in the day, alongside a Mandelbrot set or two of course. Which does bring us on to the debate here, over aesthetics or science. These are coloured images, and false coloured, as it's all infra-red radiation and my talk of light was a bit juvenile as a result. We need the false colours to see the structures and get a semblance of the narrative within all these images, as well as the visuals' sheer power and beauty to keep the funders of this stuff happy, but I can't help thinking it's all a bit of a muddle, when we're told that the plain data downloaded from space can then be formatted to take on any hues the researcher/visualiser would like.

Still, for the purposes of this we get a small but good selection of introductory pages, about the build, launch and processes of the James Webb, and then it's on with the visuals, and their one, two or three paragraphs of captions. This is here to highlight the look, as well as the science, which is frankly needed to lift this away from the coffee table book. The text promises we're seeing so much that points to teaching us about the universe's history, so all might be forgiven. And while I'm torn over the whole science revolving around fake glamour, this volume itself is both pretty-pretty and pretty clever, so certainly ought to get four astronomical bodies of some kind.

This was such a beautiful book to read overall, it had so much amazing information about the universe and included very beautiful photography.

After the launch, I had not paid much attention to news about the James Webb Space Telescope. This book has some stupendous pictures.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was planned as an advanced successor to Hubble. The engineering was complex – it was built to higher standards and to withstand extreme temperatures. There were challenges and delays with the pandemic striking. It was launched on 25 Dec 2021, and was ready to start working on 11 Jul 2022. The initial pages include the history and some technical details. The first image which the JWST sent back vowed people - showing 1,000s of galaxies. Next included is a stunning image of a dying star. There are umpteen other excellent images of galaxies and stars. The pillars of creation image popularized by Hubble has a JWST version with new perspectives. Images of planets in our solar system - Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter & moons are also included. These, especially of Jupiter are different from what I have seen otherwise and very striking. A wide range of cosmic phenomenon are covered in the images - star cluster formation, star death, collision, galaxy merger among others.

The images are all stunning. There are good illustrations on the architecture in the initial pages. The book would have benefited by being organized as section under some criteria such as – distance from us / cosmic phenomenon or other. This is a book for those with a more serious interest in astronomy than me considering the coverage. Nevertheless, I loved going through it!

If you are an astronomy enthusiast, if you look up at the night sky and wonder about the paintings made by the universe and wish to learn more about space, and James Webb telescope, this well-presented and enrichingly informing book is perfect for you,

An astounding read. I loved looking through the amazing pictures and learning about what can be observed in them.

A gorgeous collection of photos taken from telescopes. I enjoyed seeing things I’ve never seen before in the world of astrophysics. Very enlightening and would highly recommend