Black Sun and Inverted Starfield
15.10.2012

Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the above image, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a very specific color of red light, then rendered in black and white, and then color inverted.

Moons and Jupiter
13.04.2017

On April 10, a Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Both were near opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's night sky. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmmed...

The Big Corona
20.09.2017

Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is unparalleled. The human eye can adapt to see coronal features and extent that average cameras usually cannot. Welcome, however, to the digital age.

LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion
2.02.2019

The silhouette of an intriguing dark nebula inhabits this cosmic scene. Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only easily seen in long telescopic exposures of the region.

NGC 2170: Angel Nebula Still Life
26.08.2019

Is this a painting or a photograph? In this classic celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170, also known as the Angel Nebula, shines near the image center. Reflecting...

NGC 3717: A Nearly Sideways Spiral Galaxy
12.11.2019

Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can be appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NGC 3717, which is actually seen tilted just a bit.

Stereo Jupiter near Opposition
24.11.2023

Jupiter looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope images. Both were captured on November 17 from Singapore, planet Earth, about two weeks after Jupiter's 2023 opposition. Climbing high in midnight skies the giant planet was a mere 33.4 light-minutes from Singapore. That's about 4 astronomical units away.

APOD: 2024 September 18 Б The Mermaid Nebula Supernova Remnant
18.09.2024

New stars are born from the remnants of dead stars. The gaseous remnant of the gravitational collapse and subsequent death of a very massive star in our Milky Way created the G296.5+10.0 supernova remnant, of which the featured Mermaid Nebula is part.

Edge-On Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
28.02.1997

Is our Galaxy this thin? We believe so. The Milky Way, like NGC 891 pictured above, has the width of a typical spiral galaxy. Spirals have most of their bright stars, gas, and obscuring dust in a thin disk.

X Rays Indicate Star Ripped Up by Black Hole
24.02.2004

What could rip a star apart? A black hole. Giant black holes in just the right mass range would pull on the front of a closely passing star much more strongly than on the back.