...by which I mean, here are some gratuitous images of stars

The European Southern Observatory has now posted its Top 100 images and – of course – they are pure astronomical porn (sorry to any Googlers looking for something a bit more spicy). Here is a carefully (non-sweaty) handpicked selection of my personal favorites so take a moment to savour the smokin' bodies of nebulae, the stark-naked beauty of supernovae and the voluptuous curves of some truly heavenly bodies...

1. The globular cluster Omega Centauri

This bad-boy is a writhing orgy of some ten million stars... Omega Centauri is one of the few globular clusters visible to the naked eye and appears about as large as the full Moon. This was captured with the WFI camera from ESO's La Silla Observatory

2. The luminous blue variable Eta Carinae

This saucy lady is ready to explode.... At almost 100 times the size of our Sun, Eta Carinae is one of the most massive stars in our galaxy and, at a mere – in astronomical terms – distance of 7,500 light-years, it is not particularly far away. Oh, and it really is getting ready to explode in a supernova... but not for another 10,000 years or so.

3. Laser light at the Very Large Telescope

It's long and thin and shoots straight into the Milky Way.... This is an image of the VLT array (four 8.2m telescopes) firing its Laser Guide Star into heart of the Milky Way. The LSG creates an artificial star at 90 km altitude in the high Earth´s mesosphere and is used as fixed reference point to correct for the blurring effects of Earth's atomsphere.

4. The Helix Nebula

This kinky devil likes to watch... at a distance of about 450 light years, the eye-like Helix Nebula is one of the closest of all planetary nebulae. The blue-green glow in the centre of the Helix comes from oxygen atoms shining under effects of the intense ultraviolet radiation of the 120,000°C central star and the hot gases

5. The waning Moon

Well, what is there to say about the Earth's constant companion... except that, in this image, it is particularly gorgeous.

Have look at the Top 100 over at the ESO website and let me know what your favorites are!