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From Orion to the Southern Cross

From Orion to the Southern Cross

Copyright: Lucy Yunxi Hu This is a sky filled with glowing icons. On the far left is the familiar constellation of Orion, divided by its iconic three-aligned belt stars and featuring the famous Orion Nebula, both partly encircled by Barnard’s Loop. Just left of center in the featured image is the brightest star in the […]

Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas

Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas

Copyright: Jarmo RuuthTelescope LiveHeaven’s Mirror Observatory Sometimes the dark dust of interstellar space has an angular elegance. Such is the case toward the far-south constellation of Chamaeleon. Normally too faint to see, dark dust is best known for blocking visible light from stars and galaxies behind it. In this four-hour exposure, however, the dust is […]

A Retreating Thunderstorm at Sunset

A Retreating Thunderstorm at Sunset

Copyright: Alan DyerThe Amazing Sky What type of cloud is that? This retreating cumulonimbus cloud, more commonly called a thundercloud, is somewhat unusual as it contains the unusual bumpiness of a mammatus cloud on the near end, while simultaneously producing falling rain on the far end. Taken in mid-2013 in southern Alberta, Canada, the cloud […]

NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy

NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy

Copyright: Mark Hanson An island universe of billions of stars, NGC 1566 lies about 60 million light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. Popularly known as the Spanish Dancer galaxy, it’s seen face-on from our Milky Way perspective. A gorgeous grand design spiral, this galaxy’s two graceful spiral arms span over 100,000 light-years, traced by […]

Supernova Remnant Simeis 147

Supernova Remnant Simeis 147

Copyright: Jason Dain It’s easy to get lost following the intricate, looping, twisting filaments in this detailed image of supernova remnant Simeis 147. Also cataloged as Sharpless 2-240 it goes by the popular nickname, the Spaghetti Nebula. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full […]

Comet Leonard Closeup from Australia

Comet Leonard Closeup from Australia

Copyright: Blake Estesitelescope.net What does Comet Leonard look like up close? Although we can’t go there, imaging the comet’s coma and inner tails through a small telescope gives us a good idea. As the name implies, the ion tail is made of ionized gas — gas energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun and pushed […]

Orion’s Belt Region in Gas and Dust

Orion’s Belt Region in Gas and Dust

Copyright: Matt HarbisonSpace4Everybody You may have seen Orion’s belt before — but not like this. The three bright stars across this image are, from left to right, Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak: the iconic belt stars of Orion. The rest of the stars in the frame have been digitally removed to highlight the surrounding clouds of […]

Comet Leonard’s Tail Wag

Copyright: Why does Comet Leonard’s tail wag? The featured time-lapse video shows the ion tail of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) as it changed over ten days early last month. The video was taken by NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft that co-orbits the Sun at roughly the same distance as the Earth. Each image […]

Hubble’s Jupiter and the Shrinking Great Red Spot

Hubble’s Jupiter and the Shrinking Great Red Spot

Copyright: What will become of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system’s largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth. Jupiter is home to one of the largest and longest lasting storm systems known, the Great Red Spot (GRS), visible to the left. The GRS is so large […]

Quadrantids of the North

Quadrantids of the North

Copyright: Cheng Luo Named for a forgotten constellation, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower puts on an annual show for planet Earth’s northern hemisphere skygazers. The shower’s radiant on the sky lies within the old, astronomically obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis. That location is not far from the Big Dipper, at the boundaries of the modern constellations Bootes […]

Ecstatic Solar Eclipse

Ecstatic Solar Eclipse

Copyright: Point Blue Conservation Science A male Adelie penguin performed this Ecstatic Vocalization in silhouette during the December 4 solar eclipse, the final eclipse of 2021. Of course his Ecstatic Vocalization is a special display that male penguins use to claim their territory and advertise their condition. This penguin’s territory, at Cape Crozier Antarctica, is […]

The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star

The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star

Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi That’s not a young crescent Moon posing behind cathedral towers after sunset. It’s Venus in a crescent phase. About 40 million kilometers away and about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight, it was captured with camera and telephoto lens in this series of exposures as it set in western skies on January 1 […]

A Year of Sunrises

A Year of Sunrises

Copyright: Luca Vanzella Does the Sun always rise in the same direction? No. As the months change, the direction toward the rising Sun changes, too. The featured image shows the direction of sunrise every month during 2021 as seen from the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The camera in the image is always facing due […]

Moons Beyond Rings at Saturn

Moons Beyond Rings at Saturn

Copyright: What’s happened to that moon of Saturn? Nothing — Saturn’s moon Rhea is just partly hidden behind Saturn’s rings. In 2010, the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn took this narrow-angle view looking across the Solar System’s most famous rings. Rings visible in the foreground include the thin F ring on the outside and […]

Comet Leonard’s Long Tail

Comet Leonard’s Long Tail

Copyright: Jan Hattenbach You couldn’t see Comet Leonard’s extremely long tail with a telescope — it was just too long. You also couldn’t see it with binoculars — still too long. Or with your eyes — it was too dim. Or from a city — the sky was too bright. But from a dark location […]