A Scorpius Sky Spectacular
4.05.2014

If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, color filters, and a digital image processor.

The Long Gas Tail of Spiral Galaxy D100
27.01.2019

Why is there long red streak attached to this galaxy? The streak is made mostly of glowing hydrogen that has been systematically stripped away as the galaxy moved through the ambient hot gas in a cluster of galaxies. Specifically, the galaxy is spiral galaxy D100, and cluster is the Coma Cluster of galaxies.

NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis
2.06.2024

Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas.

Echoes from RS Pup
11.02.2008

This dusty reflection nebula surrounds pulsating star RS Pup, some 10 times more massive than the Sun and on average 15,000 times more luminous. In fact, RS Pup is a Cepheid type variable...

From California to the Pleiades
22.11.2013

An astronomical trip from the California Nebula to the Pleiades star cluster would cover just 12 degrees across planet Earth's night sky. That's equivalent to the angular extent of 25 Full Moons, as your telescope sweeps over the borders of the constellations Perseus and Taurus.

Ring Galaxy AM 0644 741
27.07.2021

The rim of the large blue galaxy at the right is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly formed, extremely bright, massive stars. AM 0644-741 is known as a ring galaxy and was caused by an immense galaxy collision.

Polaris and the Trail of Comet ZTF
2.02.2023

Stars trace concentric arcs around the North Celestial Pole in this three hour long night sky composite, recorded with a digital camera fixed to a tripod on January 31, near цger, Lleida, Spain. On that date Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was near its northernmost declination in planet Earth's sky.

Watch the Sky Rotate
9.01.2001

If you could watch the sky for an entire night, what would you see? The above time-lapse sequence from the CONtinuous CAMera (CONCAM) project shows the answer for the skies above Kitt Peak National Observatory on 2000 December 23.

The Orion Nebula from VLT
29.01.2001

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. But this image, a representative-color composite...

Lensing through Baade's Window
31.01.1996

What is the shape and composition of our Milky Way Galaxy? This question would be easier to answer if there wasn't so much obscuring dust! In the 1940s, however, astronomer Walter Baade identified a "window" near the center of our Galaxy where there is comparatively little opaque dust.