A Circumhorizontal Arc Over Ohio
24.05.2014

Why would clouds appear to be different colors? The reason here is that ice crystals in distant cirrus clouds are acting like little floating prisms. Sometimes known as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc lies parallel to the horizon.

Nova over Thailand
21.11.2016

A nova in Sagittarius is bright enough to see with binoculars. Detected last month, the stellar explosion even approached the limit of naked-eye visibility last week. A classical nova results from a thermonuclear explosion...

Bow Tie Moon and Star Trails
8.02.2018

On January 31, a leisurely lunar eclipse was enjoyed from all over the night side of planet Earth, the first of three consecutive total eclipses of the Moon. This dramatic time-lapse image followed the celestial performance for over three hours in a combined series of exposures from Hebei Province in Northern China.

Manhattan Skylines
17.02.2018

City lights shine along the upper east side of Manahattan in this dramatic urban night skyscape from February 13. Composed from a series of digital exposures, the monochrome image is reminiscent of the time when sensitive black and white film was a popular choice for dimly lit night and astro-photography.

Mars 2020 from 5,000 Feet
31.07.2020

On Thursday this snapshot from a small plane 5,000 feet above Florida's Space Coast caught a rocket's trail rising into the blue morning sky. It was July's third launch of a mission from planet Earth bound for Mars.

A Thousand Meteors
12.09.2020

Over a thousand meteors flash through the night in this intriguing timelapse video. Starting in April 2019 the individual video frames were selected from 372 relatively clear nights of imaging from an automated wide-field observatory in rural New South Wales Australia.

APOD: 2023 November 29 Б A Landspout Tornado over Kansas
29.11.2023

Could there be a tornado inside another tornado? In general, no. OK, but could there be a tornado inside a wider dust devil? No again, for one reason because tornados comes down from the sky, but dust devils rise up from the ground.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 253 Almost Sideways
2.11.1996

NGC 253 is a normal spiral galaxy seen here almost sideways. It is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies.

Antlia: A New Galactic Neighbor
23.04.1997

Meet Antlia, a newly discovered neighbor of our Milky Way Galaxy. Announced just last week, this faint member of our Local Group of Galaxies has only about one million stars. It is late in being noticed because it is so hard to see against a bright sky.

Mars Rising Behind Elephant Rock
28.08.2003

Yesterday, at about 10 am Universal Time, Mars and Earth passed closer than in nearly 60,000 years. Mars, noticeably red, remains the brightest object in the eastern sky just after sunset. The best...