September Sky
29.09.2000

Star clusters, planets, and a red giant posed for this portrait of the night sky from rural Jasper County, Iowa, USA. Astrophotographer Stan Richard recorded the four minute time exposure looking east around midnight on September 3rd at Ashton-Wildwood Park.

Reflection Nebula vdB1
26.10.2012

Every book has a first page and every catalog a first entry. And so this lovely blue cosmic cloud begins the van den Bergh Catalog (vdB) of stars surrounded by reflection nebulae. Interstellar dust...

The Gegenschein Over Chile
7.05.2008

Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for "counter glow") can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky. The gegenschein is sunlight back-scattered off small interplanetary dust particles.

APOD: 2024 February 25 Б A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland
25.02.2024

All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet September night, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again.

Summer to Winter Milky Way
19.10.2018

Taken near local midnight, this autumn night's panorama follows the arch of the Milky Way across the northern horizon from the High Fens, Eifel Nature Park at the border of Belgium and Germany.

Moonset Over Pleasant Bay
29.03.2010

It was a sky for the imagination. In the early evening last week, the sky illuminating the unaided eye was perhaps even more illuminating to the mind's eye. The unaided eye saw clouds...

Reflected Aurora Over Alaska
12.02.2013

Some auroras can only be seen with a camera. They are called subvisual and are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. In the above image, the green aurora were easily visible to the eye, but the red aurora only became apparent after a 20-second camera exposure.

The Gegenschein Over Chile
14.01.2014

Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for "counter glow") can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky. The gegenschein is sunlight back-scattered off small interplanetary dust particles.

When Z is for Mars
15.04.2023

A composite of images captured about a week apart from mid August 2022 through late March 2023, this series traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars. Progressing from lower right to upper left Mars...

Fornax Cluster in Motion
24.09.2004

Reminiscent of popular images of the lovely Pleiades star cluster that lies within our own Milky Way Galaxy, this false-color x-ray view actually explores the center of a much more extended cosmic family -- the Fornax cluster of galaxies some 65 million light-years away.