M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy from VLT
11.05.2003

M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra, majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered...

APOD: 2025 June 30 Б NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
29.06.2025

It's raining stars. What appears to be a giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy. The main galaxy, spiral galaxy...

NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
16.05.2021

Is our Milky Way Galaxy this thin? Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices.

Arp 273: Battling Galaxies from Hubble
19.11.2019

What's happening to these spiral galaxies? Although details remain uncertain, there sure seems to be a titanic battle going on. The upper galaxy is labelled UGC 1810 by itself, but together with its collisional partners is known as Arp 273.

Big Dipper, Deep Sky
22.01.2016

The Big Dipper is an easy to recognize, well-known asterism in northern skies, though many see the Plough or Wagon. Famous bright nebulae of the north can also be found along its familiar lines, highlighted in this carefully composed scene with telescopic insets framed in the wider-field skyview.

APOD: 2025 May 13 Б Gaia Reconstructs a Top View of our Galaxy
12.05.2025

What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the top? Because we are on the inside, humanity canБt get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESAБs Gaia mission.

M63: The Sunflower Galaxy from Hubble
8.11.2016

One of the bright spiral galaxies visible in the north sky is M63, the Sunflower Galaxy. M63, also catalogued as NGC 5055, can be found with a small telescope toward the constellation of Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici).

NGC 3521: Galaxy in a Bubble
15.09.2011

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65.

M33: Triangulum Galaxy
26.09.2018

The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way.

NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
6.02.2022

It's raining stars. What appears to be a giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy. The main galaxy, spiral galaxy...