Messier 66 Close Up
13.06.2024

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 66 lies a mere 35 million light-years away. The gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across, similar in size to the Milky Way. This Hubble Space Telescope close-up view spans a region about 30,000 light-years wide around the galactic core.

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
25.07.2024

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers.

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
16.01.2026

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers.

Happy Birthday Charles Messier: M1
26.06.1996

French astronomer Charles Messier was born on June 26, 1730. Inspired by childhood sightings of comets and a solar eclipse visible from his home town of Badonvillier, he became an astronomer and comet hunter who kept careful records of his observations.

The Radio Sky: Tuned to 408MHz
26.11.1996

Tune your radio telescope to 408MHz (408 million cycles per second) and check out the Radio Sky! You should find that frequency on your dial somewhere between US broadcast television channels 13 and 14.

Colliding Supernova Remnants
2.10.1997

When a massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel it explodes. This stellar detonation, a supernova, propels vast amounts of starstuff outwards, initially at millions of miles per hour. For another 100,000 years...

Jupiter and the Moon s Shadowed Horizon
9.12.2004

Early Tuesday morning, December 7th, June Croft thought the southeastern sky above Atmore, Alabama, USA was beautiful. Watching the Moon rise through gossamer clouds, she noted, " ... the crescent Moon looked like it was held in the sky by a star just off its shadowed horizon." What was that star?

IC 5067: Emission Nebula Close up
27.12.2006

This amazing skyscape lies along a bright ridge of emission in IC 5067, also known as The Pelican Nebula. Appropriately, the Pelican Nebula itself is part of a much larger, complex star-forming region about 2,000 light-years away in the high flying constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

Expansive Comet Holmes
21.11.2007

The spherical coma of Comet Holmes has swollen to a diameter of over 1.4 million kilometers, making the tenuous, dusty cloud even bigger than the Sun. Scattering sunlight, all that dust and gas came...

The Eskimo Nebula from Hubble
3.05.2009

In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the Eskimo Nebula. From space, the nebula displays gas clouds so complex they are not fully understood.