The above-displayed image is a real photograph of the Helix Nebula , although it’s technically not a single photograph but rather a composite image formed from several photographs taken by NASA’s orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and a land-based telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. This image was NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” for 10 May 2003 .

The Helix Nebula does not naturally appear with the colors shown above; however, the tinting of the image is artificial. The picture’s “Eye of God” appellation is a title coined by an admirer of the photograph due to the nebula’s resemblance to a human eye, not something designated by NASA, and the nebula is also visible all the time, not merely “once in 3000 years.”