From Auriga to Orion
22.03.2021

What's up in the sky from Auriga to Orion? Many of the famous stars and nebulas in this region were captured on 34 separate images, taking over 430 hours of exposure, and digitally combined to reveal the featured image.

Perseid over Albrechtsberg Castle
25.08.2012

Medieval Albrechtsberg castle is nestled in trees near the northern bank of the river Pielach and the town of Melk, Austria. In clearing night skies on August 12 it stood under constellations of the northern summer, including Aquarius, Aquila, and faint, compact Delphinus (above and right of center) in this west-looking skyview.

3I/ATLAS Flyby
26.12.2025

Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. This deep exposure captures the comet...

Lynds Dark Nebula 43
30.10.2025

Sure, Halloween is an astronomy holiday. But astronomers always enjoy scanning the heavens for spook-tacular galaxies, stars, and nebulae. This favorite is item number 43 from the Beverly Lynds 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae, fondly known as the Cosmic Bat nebula.

A Fisheye View of Comet Hale-Bopp
25.08.1997

Thousands of stars, several constellations, a planet and a comet all graced the western horizon over Ujue, Spain just after sunset on April 4th, 1997. Because the picture was taken with a fisheye lens, much of the whole night sky is visible. Comet Hale-Bopp, with both tails blazing, appears right of center.

APOD: 2025 October 29 Б Dust Shapes of the Ghost Nebula
29.10.2025

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.

A Deep Field In The Southern Sky
29.06.2002

This deep view of the cosmos is the sequel to the 1995 hit Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field. Billed as the Hubble Deep Field South, it was produced by pointing the space telescope toward a patch of sky in the southern constellation Tucana.

APOD: 2023 January 3 Б Kembles Cascade of Stars
3.01.2023

This line of stars is real. A little too faint to see with the unaided eye, KembleБs Cascade of stars inspires awe when seen with binoculars. Like the Big Dipper though, KembleБs Cascade is an asterism, not a constellation. The asterism is visible in the northern sky toward the long-necked constellation of the Giraffe (Camelopardalis).

Orion Star Colours
29.08.1998

What determines a star's colour? Its temperature. Red stars are cool, around 3,000 kelvins (K), while blue stars are hotter and can have temperatures over 30,000 K. Our own lovely yellow Sun's temperature is a comforting 6,000 K.

Chamaeleon II Dark Cloud
2.08.2019

A small constellation hiding near the south celestial pole, The Chamaeleon boasts no bright stars. Stars are forming within its constellation boundaries though, in a complex of dark, dusty molecular clouds. Some 500 light-years...