Comet at Moonrise
3.10.2024

Comet C/2023 A3 (TsuchinshanБATLAS) is growing brighter in planet Earth's sky. Fondly known as comet A3, this new visitor to the inner Solar System is traveling from the distant Oort cloud. The comet...

X-Rays from Comet LINEAR
1.08.2000

Why do comets emit X-rays? First discovered during the passing of Comet Hyakutake in 1996, the reason a cold comet would produce hot X-rays has since remained a mystery. On July 14, however...

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3310 Across the Visible
11.09.2001

The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up with a tremendous burst of star formation.

NGC 7635: Bubble in a Cosmic Sea
28.04.2006

Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea of stars and glowing gas, the delicate, floating apparition near the center (next to a blue tinted star) of this widefield view is cataloged as NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula.

Globules in the Running Chicken Nebula
5.03.2014

The eggs from this chicken may form into stars. The above pictured emission nebula, cataloged as IC 2944, is called the Running Chicken Nebula for the shape of its greater appearance. The image was taken recently from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and presented in scientifically assigned colors.

The Tadpoles of IC 410
23.01.2018

This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust below and left of center, the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars.

Messier 20 and 21
23.08.2018

The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (bottom right).

Reflections on vdB 9
20.02.2019

Centered in a well-composed celestial still life, pretty, blue vdB 9 is the 9th object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this telescopic field of view, about...

Milky Way, Launch, and Landing
10.05.2019

The Milky Way doesn't look quite this colorful and bright to the eye, but a rocket launch does. So a separate deep exposure with a sensitive digital camera was used in this composite skyscape to bring out our galaxy's central crowded starfields and cosmic dust clouds.

Venusian Volcano Imagined
26.10.2020

What would an erupting volcano on Venus look like? Evidence of currently active volcanoes on Venus was announced earlier this year with the unexplained warmth of regions thought to contain only ancient volcanoes. Although...