Time Lapse of a Total Lunar Eclipse
28.04.2014

Why would a bright full Moon suddenly become dark? Because it entered the shadow of the Earth. Almost two weeks ago this exact event happened as the Moon underwent a total lunar eclipse. That...

Shackleton from ShadowCam
4.05.2023

Shackleton crater lies at the lunar south pole. Peaks along the 21 kilometer diameter are in sunlight, but Shackleton's floor is in dark permanent shadow. Still, this image of the shadowed rim wall...

Crepuscular Rays Over Utah
31.08.2005

What could cause such rays of dark? Dark sky rays were caught in spectacular fashion earlier this month above Utah, USA. The cause is something surprisingly familiar: shadows. Clouds near the horizon can block sunlight from reflecting off air, making columns outward from the Sun appear unusually dark.

The Umbra of Earth
15.12.2011

The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth is called the umbra. Shaped like a cone extending into space, it has a circular cross section most easily seen during a lunar eclipse. For example, last Saturday the Full Moon slid across the southern half of Earth's umbral shadow, entertaining moonwatchers around much of the planet.

Triple Transit and Mutual Events
20.08.2021

These three panels feature the Solar System's ruling gas giant Jupiter on August 15 as seen from Cebu City, Phillipines, planet Earth. On that date the well-timed telescopic views detail some remarkable performances, transits and mutual events, by Jupiter's Galilean moons.

APOD: 2026 July 18 БShadow and Rainbow
17.07.2026

At sunset, an alignment of rainbow and mountain shadow was captured in this remarkable snapshot. The stunning view was recorded from a fire lookout on Smith Peak in the Plumas National Forest near Portola, California on July 13.

APOD: 2026 August 5 Б Spokes on Saturn's B Ring
4.08.2026

DonБt get spooked by SaturnБs ghostly spokes! Today we feature a nearly two-hour timelapse of Saturn and its rings looping forwards and backwards. A day on Saturn is only 10 hours long, so two hours of observation covers quite a bit of its rotation.

Annular Solar Eclipse
19.05.2012

Tomorrow, May 20, the Moon's shadow will race across planet Earth. Observers within the 240-300 kilometer wide shadow track will be able to witness an annular solar eclipse as the Moon's apparent size is presently too small to completely cover the Sun.

A Blue Blood Moon
2.10.2015

This sharp telescopic snapshot caught late September's Harvest Moon completely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow, at the beginning of a total lunar eclipse. It was the final eclipse in a tetrad, a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses.

An Almost Eclipse of the Moon
17.01.2020

This composited series of images follows the Moon on January 10, the first Full Moon of 2020, in Hungarian skies. The lunar disk is in mid-eclipse at the center of the sequence though. It looks only slightly darker there as it passes through the light outer shadow or penumbra of planet Earth.