Leaving Earth
5.08.2013

What it would look like to leave planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it swung back past the Earth, eight years ago, on its way in toward the planet Mercury. Earth can be seen rotating in this time-lapse video, as it recedes into the distance.

The Horsehead Nebula
31.12.2013

The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula in the center of the above photograph. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright red emission nebula.

Las Campanas Moon and Mercury
6.08.2016

Last Thursday the view toward sunset from the 2.5 kilometer summit of Cerro Las Campanas in the remote Chilean Andes was amazing. Bright but fading Mercury stood very close to a two day old Moon. Both a sunlit lunar crescent and earthlit lunar nightside are captured with the fleeting innermost planet in this breathtaking mountainscape.

Total Lunar Eclipse from Sydney
28.05.2021

The reddened shadow of planet Earth plays across the lunar disk in this telescopic image taken on May 26 near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. On that crisp, clear autumn night a Perigee Full Moon slid through the northern edge of the shadow's dark central umbra.

Abell 3627 in the Great Attractor
18.02.1996

Are these galaxies near the center of the largest gravitationally bound concentration of mass yet known? Previously, the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 3627 was largely unstudied because dust in the disk of our own Galaxy obscured much of its light.

Milky Way Over Abandoned Kilns
25.07.2011

What's that below the Milky Way? Historic kilns. Built in the 1870s in rural Nevada, USA to process local wood into charcoal, the kilns were soon abandon due to a town fire and flooding, but remain in good condition even today.

Galaxy Cove Vista Revisited
29.06.2014

To see a vista like this takes patience, hiking, and a camera. Patience was needed in searching out just the right place and waiting for just the right time. A short hike was needed to reach this rugged perch above a secluded cove in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in California, USA.

A Launch and a Landing
27.09.2014

Taken from an Atlantic beach, Cape Canaveral, planet Earth, four identically framed digital images are combined in this night skyscape. Slightly shifted short star trails dot the sky, but the exposure times were adjusted to follow the flight of a Falcon 9 rocket.

Love and War by Moonlight
25.02.2015

Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, and Mars, the war god's namesake, came together by moonlight in this lovely skyview, recorded on February 20 from Charleston, South Carolina, USA, planet Earth.

Milky Way over Bosque Alegre Station in Argentina
22.09.2015

What are those streaks of light in the sky? First and foremost, the arching structure is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Visible in this galactic band are millions of distant stars mixed with numerous lanes of dark dust.