APOD: 2025 July 5 Б Ou4: The Giant Squid Nebula
5.07.2025

Difficult to capture, this mysterious, squid-shaped interstellar cloud spans nearly three full moons in planet Earth's sky. Discovered in 2011 by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula's bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms.

APOD: 2025 July 19 Б Messier 6
19.07.2025

The sixth object in Charles Messier's famous catalog of things which are not comets, Messier 6 is a galactic or open star cluster. A gathering of 100 stars or so, all around 100 million years young, M6 lies some 1,600 light-years away toward the central Milky Way in the constellation Scorpius.

Three Galaxies in Draco
8.06.2001

This intriguing trio of galaxies is sometimes called the NGC 5985/Draco Group and so (quite reasonably) is located in the northern constellation Draco. From left to right are face-on spiral NGC 5985, elliptical galaxy...

The High Energy Crab Nebula
22.11.1998

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula is so energetic that it glows in every kind of light known. Shown above are images of the Crab Nebula from visible light to the X-ray band.

APOD: 2023 August 22 Б The Pistachio Nebula
22.08.2023

This nebula had never been noted before. Newly discovered nebulas are usually angularly small and found by professionals using large telescopes. In contrast, the Pistachio Nebula was discovered by dedicated amateurs and, although faint, is nearly the size of the full Moon.

Saturn Behind the Moon
14.08.2019

What's that next to the Moon? Saturn. In its monthly trip around the Earth -- and hence Earth's sky -- our Moon passed nearly in front of Sun-orbiting Saturn earlier this week. Actually the Moon passed directly in front of Saturn from the viewpoints of a wide swath of Earth's Southern Hemisphere.

A Sagittarius Triplet
10.07.2024

These three bright nebulae are often featured on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula above center, and colorful M20 below and left in the frame.

APOD: 2025 July 4 Б NGC 6946 and NGC 6939
4.07.2025

Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and open star cluster NGC 6939 share this cosmic snapshot, composed with over 68 hours of image data captured with a small telescope on planet Earth. The field of view spans spans about 1 degree or 2 full moons on the sky toward the northern constellation Cepheus.

APOD: 2026 May 27 Б PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula
27.05.2026

What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? TodayБs image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1. This planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5 th the diameter of the full moon.

In the Heart of the Virgo Cluster
8.07.2008

The Virgo Cluster of Galaxies is the closest cluster of galaxies to our Milky Way Galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is so close that it spans more than 5 degrees on the sky - about 10 times the angle made by a full Moon.