A Lunar Eclipse in Three Exposures
25.01.2000

Our Moon turned red last week. The reason was that during the night of January 20, a total lunar eclipse occurred. The above digitally superimposed photographs captured the Moon three times during this lunar...

Hale-Bopp Brightest Comet This Decade
13.03.1997

The Great Comet of 1997 is now brighter than the Great Comet of 1996 ever was. In fact, it is brighter than almost every star in the sky. Yet Comet Hale-Bopp is still about two weeks away from maximum light.

M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
18.07.2004

Andromeda is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Our Galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda. Together these two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The diffuse light from Andromeda is caused by the hundreds of billions of stars that compose it.

The Big Dipper
8.01.2007

Do you see it? This common question frequently precedes the rediscovery of one of the most commonly recognized configurations of stars on the northern sky: the Big Dipper. This grouping of stars is one of the few things that has likely been seen, and will be seen, by every generation.

IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula
2.04.2013

Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the above imaged molecular cloud complex is a reflection nebula cataloged as IC 4592.

Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte
7.04.2016

Named for the three astronomers instrumental in its discovery and identification, Wolf - Lundmark - Melotte (WLM) is a lonely dwarf galaxy. Seen toward the mostly southern constellation Cetus, about 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, it is one of the most remote members of our local galaxy group.

APOD: 2023 October 30 Б Reflections of the Ghost Nebula
30.10.2023

Do any shapes seem to jump out at you from this interstellar field of stars and dust? The jeweled expanse, filled with faint, starlight-reflecting clouds, drifts through the night in the royal constellation of Cepheus.

RCW 85
14.06.2024

From the 1960 astronomical catalog of Rodgers, Campbell and Whiteoak, emission region RCW 85 shines in southern night skies between bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri. About 5,000 light years distant, the hazy interstellar cloud of glowing hydrogen gas and dust is faint.

Star Factory Messier 17
29.08.2024

A nearby star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view would span about 150 light-years.

Titan from Cassini in Infrared
6.07.2004

Could life exist under the smog of Titan? If not, what is creating all of the methane? To help answer these questions, the largest and most mysterious moon of Saturn got a quick first look from the Cassini robot spacecraft soon after entering orbit around the giant planet last week.