Venus and the Pleiades
15.04.2004

Venus still rules the western skies after sunset as the brilliant evening star. While wandering the ecliptic with its fellow naked-eye planets earlier this month, it passed near the Pleiades star cluster, providing a striking photo opportunity for earthbound skygazers.

NGC 6334: The Cats Paw Nebula
10.05.2022

Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius.

Inside the Flame Nebula
10.05.2014

The Flame Nebula stands out in this optical image of the dusty, crowded star forming regions toward Orion's belt, a mere 1,400 light-years away. X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory and infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope can take you inside the glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds though.

NGC 7027: A Dying Star's Nebula
17.01.1996

This pseudo-color composite of two recent Hubble Space Telescope images is a picture of a Sun-like star nearing the end of its lifetime. The exquisite details visible in this planetary nebula indicate that when...

NGC 6334: The Cats Paw Nebula
4.03.2008

Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius.

Naked Eye Comet ZTF
21.01.2023

Comet C/2022E3 (ZTF) is no longer too dim to require a telescope for viewing. By January 19, it could just be seen with the naked eye in this rural sky with little light pollution from a location about 20 kilometers from Salamanca, Spain.

Star Cluster NGC 362 from Hubble
11.10.2017

If our Sun were near the center of NGC 362, the night sky would glow like a jewel box of bright stars. Hundreds of stars would glow brighter than Sirius, and in many different colors.

NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula
14.01.2012

This pretty planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 6369, was discovered by 18th century astronomer William Herschel as he used a telescope to explore the medicinal constellation Ophiucus. Round and planet-shaped, the nebula is also relatively faint and has acquired the popular moniker of Little Ghost Nebula.

Microquasar in Motion
16.09.2004

Microquasars, bizarre binary star systems, generating high-energy radiation and blasting out jets of particles at nearly the speed of light, live in our Milky Way galaxy. The energetic microquasar systems seem to consist...

LMC Star Clouds
11.10.1995

Pictured above are clouds of young stars forming an arc in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, the nearest galaxy to the our Milky Way Galaxy. These stars are situated in a star forming region known as N 51.