Milky Way with Airglow Australis
2.02.2017

Captured last April after sunset on a Chilean winter's night an exceptionally intense airglow flooded this scene. The panoramic skyscape is also filled with stars, clusters, and nebulae along the southern Milky Way including the Large and Small Magellanic clouds.

Milky Way with Airglow Australis
3.09.2015

After sunset on September 1, an exceptionally intense, reddish airglow flooded this Chilean winter night skyscape. Above a sea of clouds and flanking the celestial Milky Way, the airglow seems to ripple and flow across the northern horizon in atmospheric waves.

Gamma Ray Earth and Sky
6.12.2013

For an Earth-orbiting gamma-ray telescope, Earth is actually the brightest source of gamma-rays, the most energetic form of light. Gamma-rays from Earth are produced when high energy particles, cosmic rays from space, crash into the atmosphere.

An Etruscan Vase Moon Rising
22.02.2009

What's happened to the Moon? Nothing, although from some locations, February's full moon, which occurred about two weeks ago, appeared strangely distorted as it rose. Visible in particular was a curiously inverted...

The Giant and the Glory
6.08.2004

On a flight from Vienna to Brussels, astronomer Franz Kerschbaum looked out the window and photographed this beautiful atmospheric phenomenon, the glory, shining in the direction directly opposite the Sun. Before airplanes, the glory, known to some as the heiligenschein or the Specter of the Brocken, was occasionally seen from mountaintops.

Saturn s Serpent Storm
16.03.2011

Late last year, a new, remarkably bright storm erupted in Saturn's northern hemisphere. Nicknamed "the Serpent Storm", the northern hemisphere disturbance is still going strong and now circles far around the planet. Offering...

A Strange Sunrise Over Argentina
10.10.2011

Why would a rising Sun look so strange? No one is yet sure. What is clear is that the above unusual sunrise was captured last month from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The body of water in the foreground is Rio de La Plata, considered by many to be the widest river in the world.

Sunset from the International Space Station
23.06.2010

What are these strange color bands being seen from the International Space Station? The Sun setting through Earth's atmosphere. Pictured above, a sunset captured last month by the ISS's Expedition 23 crew shows in vivid detail many layers of the Earth's thin atmosphere.

Airglow Over Germany
5.09.2012

Does air glow? It does, but it is usually hard to see. When conditions are right, however, a faint glow about 90 kilometers up can be observed, most easily with a wide-angle long-duration camera exposure.

An Unusual Venusian Oval
13.02.2012

Why would Venus appear oval? Venus has been seen countless times from the surface of the Earth, and every time the Earth's atmosphere has dispersed its light to some degree. When...