Mount Etna Milky Way
5.07.2024

A glow from the summit of Mount Etna, famous active stratovolcano of planet Earth, stands out along the horizon in this mountain and night skyscape. Bands of diffuse light from congeries of innumerable stars along the Milky Way galaxy stretch across the sky above.

Young Suns
19.02.2000

The star cataloged as NGC2264 IRS is normally hidden from the inquiring gaze of optical telescopes. It resides in the midst of the obscuring gas and dust of a nearby star forming region popularly known as the Cone Nebula.

Resolving Mira
21.01.2001

Most stars appear only as points of light. In 1995, Betelgeuse became the second star, after our Sun, to have it surface resolved. Later that year, Mira was added to the list. Mira...

M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
15.11.2007

M13 is modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. A system of stars numbering in the hundreds of thousands, it is one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky.

Mars in Taurus
4.03.2021

You can spot Mars in the evening sky tonight. Now home to the Perseverance rover, the Red Planet is presently wandering through the constellation Taurus, close on the sky to the Seven Sisters or Pleiades star cluster.

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse
22.01.1996

Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), a red supergiant star about 600 lightyears distant, is shown here in this Hubble Space Telescope image which represents the first direct picture of the surface of a star other than the Sun.

Tombaugh 4
21.10.2006

Clyde Tombaugh discovered planet Pluto in 1930 while surveying the skies with the 13-inch Lawrence Lowell Telescope. But the skilled and careful astronomer also went on to discover star clusters, comets, asteroids, and clusters of galaxies. For example, pictured is galactic or open star cluster Tombaugh 4 in the northern constellation Cassiopeia.

Beautiful Albireo AB
24.02.2022

Beta Cygni is a single bright star to the naked eye. About 420 light-years away it marks the foot of the Northern Cross, famous asterism in the constellation Cygnus. But a view through...

NGC 4697: X Rays from an Elliptical Galaxy
17.06.2002

The many bright, point-like sources in this Chandra Observatory x-ray image lie within NGC 4697, an elliptical galaxy some 40 million light-years away towards Virgo. Like other normal elliptical galaxies, NGC 4697 is a spherical ensemble of mainly older, fainter, low mass stars, with little star forming gas and dust compared to spiral galaxies.

Venus and the Sisters
6.04.2012

After wandering about as far from the Sun on the sky as Venus can get, the brilliant evening star crossed paths with the Pleiades star cluster earlier this week. The beautiful conjunction was enjoyed by skygazers around the world. Taken on April 2, this celestial group photo captures the view from Portal, Arizona, USA.