January Aurora Over Norway
24.01.2012

What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun five days ago, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Although...

Iridescent Cloud Edge Over Colorado
28.10.2014

Sometimes your eclipse viewing goes bad in an interesting way. While watching and photographing last Thursday's partial solar eclipse, a popular astronomy blogger suffered through long periods of clouds blocking the Sun. Unexpectedly, however, a nearby cloud began to show a rare effect: iridescence.

Ghirigori Star Scribbles
12.08.2023

It's fun to scribble on the canvas of the sky. You can use a creative photographic technique to cause the light of point-like stars to dance across a digital image by tapping lightly on the telescope while making an exposure.

APOD: 2024 January 14 Б Dragon Aurora over Iceland
14.01.2024

Have you ever seen a dragon in the sky? Although real flying dragons don't exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in the sky over Iceland in 2019. The aurora was caused...

The McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory
15.03.1996

This odd-looking structure silhouetted in the foreground houses the three largest solar telescopes in the world. Located in Kitt Peak, Arizona, the largest telescope inside the McMath-Pierce Facility is 1.6-meters in diameter and contains only mirrors. The telescope contains no windows or lenses because focusing bright sunlight would overheat them.

Bakasa Eclipse Sequence
6.07.2001

Starting at the upper left, this sequence of images follows the progress of the magnificent 21 June, 2001 solar eclipse in the clear skies over Bakasa, Zimbabwe. These pictures were recorded using a small reflecting telescope and digital camera with the approximate local time given above each frame.

Jupiter by Moonlight
3.11.2023

That bright beacon you've seen rising in the east just after sunset is Jupiter. Climbing high in midnight skies, our Solar System's ruling gas giant was at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, on November 2.

The North Pole of Venus
14.05.2003

If you could look down on the North Pole of Venus what would you see? The Magellan probe that orbited Venus from 1990 to 1994 was able to peer through the thick Venusian clouds and build up the above image by emitting and re-detecting cloud-penetrating radar.

The Very Large Array of Radio Telescopes
28.05.2002

The most photogenic array of radio telescopes in the world has also been one of the most productive. Each of the 27 radio telescopes in the Very Large Array (VLA) is the size of a house and can be moved on train tracks.

The Iron Sun
21.05.1996

The ultraviolet light emitted by eleven times ionized iron at temperatures over 2 million degrees Farenheit was used to record the above picture of the Sun on May 16. The image was made by the EIT camera onboard the SOHO spacecraft, a space observatory which can continuously observe the Sun.