Conjunction Colours
23.08.2012

During the past week, nightfall on planet Earth has featured Mars, Saturn, and Spica in a lovely conjunction near the western horizon. Still forming the corners of a distinctive celestial triangle after sunset...

Full Moon Silhouettes
30.01.2013

Have you ever watched the Moon rise? The slow rise of a nearly full moon over a clear horizon can be an impressive sight. One impressive moonrise was imaged two nights ago over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand.

The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star
5.01.2022

That's not a young crescent Moon posing behind cathedral towers after sunset. It's Venus in a crescent phase. About 40 million kilometers away and about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight...

The Tails of Comet NEAT Q4
12.05.2004

Comet NEAT (Q4) is showing its tails. As the large snowball officially dubbed Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) falls toward the inner Solar System, it has already passed the Earth and will reach its closest approach to the Sun this coming Saturday.

West Coast Launch and Landing
10.10.2018

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch dazzled viewers along the U.S. west coast after sunset on October 7. Rising from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, planet Earth, the Falcon 9's first stage then returned to a landing zone some 400 meters from the launch site less than 8 minutes after liftoff.

Afternoon Analemma
22.09.2023

An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. To make this one, a 4x5 pinhole camera was set up looking north in southern New Zealand skies.

Comet Hyakutake on a Starry Night
23.04.1996

It was a starry night in April (April 9th, 1996, 9:32 pm CDT to be exact) near Lone Jack, Missouri when Comet Hyakutake graced this astronomically rich field. Making an appearance as the brilliant evening star, Venus is overexposed at the far left.

Cap Cloud over the Sierra Nevadas
26.11.2013

One might say this was a bell weather day for the Sierra Nevada mountains. In January, just as the Sun was setting above the district of AlbayzМn in Grenada, Spain, a huge cloud appeared as a bell capping the Veleta peak.

Comet 45P Returns
1.01.2017

An old comet has returned to the inner Solar System. Not only is Comet 45P/HondaMrkosPajduАkovА physically ancient, it was first discovered 13 orbits ago in 1948. Comet 45P spends most of its time out near the orbit of Jupiter and last neared the Sun in 2011.

Sundogs over the VLA
23.08.1999

What if you woke up one morning and saw more than one Sun in the sky? Most probably, you would be seeing sundogs, extra-images of the Sun created by falling ice-crystals in the Earth's atmosphere. As water freezes in the atmosphere, small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals might be formed.