Space and stars have always fascinated mankind. Is there something truly more beautiful than the galaxy and its millions of stars, more breath-taking than the rings of Saturn and the sun’s hot plasma? Hardly. Space, stars and nebulas can become interesting design elements that carry a meaning of vastness and wonder.
I dug up on the internet 4 free beautiful and high-quality space and star resources that can be used in your designs and/or photomontages. Enjoy!
Resurgere’s Cosmos Packages
Resurgere is known for its marvelous high-quality non-commercial image packs. Free to use for non-profit purposes, they have a total of 8 cosmos pack, each filled with images of space and (often fictional yet fantastic) planets. You will find all the links to the other packs on the page description, below the main image.
NASA’s Photo Gallery
For real images of space, NASA is the place to go; a collection of thousands of images of space, collected by the satellites, and distributed for free, often in high-resolution. (In case you are having trouble with this site as it can be on occasion a bit slow, you can also check out this other NASA program called JPL which has an extensive photo gallery as well.)
GFXtra’s Planets and Stars
You will find on GFXtra.com a pack of high-resolution space images which seems to be a mix of telescope pictures and fictional nebulas and star clusters. A very beautiful pack indeed, and free, of course.
DeviantART’s Space Stock Images
DeviantART, the leading online art community, offers thousands of stock images and other resources of space, stars and planets. Granted, not all the material is pixel-perfect, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys a scavenger hunt (not unlike trying to find that special pair of pants at Winners while digging through mountains of clothes), you will love going through all those images, many of which are quite beautiful and very kindly distributed for free by their creators. Tip: Sort by most popular to see which sets of images are (most likely) the best.