The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Telescope
17.06.1998

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will soon begin. Pictured above is the 2.5-meter telescope poised to create the most ambitious sky map in the history of astronomy. SDSS will catalog one quarter of the sky down past 23rd magnitude ( R), obtaining redshifts for galaxies and quasars brighter than magnitude 19.

The Sky in Motion
31.12.2008

Still need to come up with a good new year's resolution? Consider one appropriate for 2009, the International Year of Astronomy; just look up -- experience, learn, and enjoy the changing sky. This 4-minute, time-lapse video is composed from a series of 7,000 images highlighting much of what you could see.

Comet Hale-Bopp Enters the Evening Sky
7.03.1997

You no longer have to wake-up early to see Comet Hale-Bopp. From many northern locations, you can now go outside just after sunset and see Comet Hale-Bopp above the north-western horizon. Both writer/editors of APOD are impressed by how bright Comet Hale-Bopp has become, and how easily visible it is.

A Quadruple Sky Over Great Salt Lake
13.09.2005

This was a sky to show the kids. All in all, three children, three planets, the Moon, a star, an airplane and a mom were all captured in one image near Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA on September 6.

Jyvцskylц in the Sky
25.01.2024

You might not immediately recognize this street map of a neighborhood in Jyvцskylц, Finland, planet Earth. But that's probably because the map was projected into the night sky and captured with an allsky camera on January 16. The temperature recorded on that northern winter night was around minus 20 degrees Celsius.

A Full Sky Aurora Over Norway
3.01.2012

Higher than the highest building, higher than the highest mountain, higher than the highest airplane, lies the realm of the aurora. Auroras rarely reach below 60 kilometers, and can range up to 1000 kilometers. Aurora light results from energetic electrons and protons striking molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

A Cerro Tololo Sky
6.08.2006

High atop a Chilean mountain lies one of the premier observatories of the southern sky: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Pictured above is the dome surrounding one of the site's best known instruments, the 4-meter Blanco Telescope.

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.

Diamonds in the Sky
20.04.2024

When the dark shadow of the Moon raced across North America on April 8, sky watchers along the shadow's narrow central path were treated to a total solar eclipse. During the New Moon's shadow play diamonds glistened twice in the eclipse-darkened skies.

Trapezium: Teardrops in My Skies
28.02.1999

Sometimes the unexpected comes in a familiar shape. In this picture, the seemingly familiar teardrop-shaped object just right of center is actually an unusually situated disk of gas and dust. In fact, the teardrop is about the size of our own Solar System and is racing against time to condense and form planets.