Aurora over Sweden
31.05.2020

It was bright and green and stretched across the sky. This striking aurora display was captured in 2016 just outside of цstersund, Sweden. Six photographic fields were merged to create the featured panorama spanning almost 180 degrees. Particularly striking aspects of this aurora include its sweeping arc-like shape and its stark definition.

NGC 6822: Barnard s Galaxy
28.11.2020

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small galaxies form stars too, like nearby NGC 6822, also known as Barnard's Galaxy.

The Mountains of NGC 2174
16.01.2021

This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved...

NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy
14.01.2022

An island universe of billions of stars, NGC 1566 lies about 60 million light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. Popularly known as the Spanish Dancer galaxy, it's seen face-on from our Milky Way perspective.

Point Reyes Milky Way
12.03.2022

Northern winter constellations and a long arc of the Milky Way are setting in this night skyscape looking toward the Pacific Ocean from Point Reyes on planet Earth's California coast. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, is prominent below the starry arc toward the left.

Comet C 2023 E1 ATLAS near Perihelion
14.07.2023

Comet C/2023 E1 (ATLAS) was just spotted in March, another comet found by the NASA funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. On July 1 this Comet ATLAS reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun.

APOD: 2025 August 20 Б Perseid Meteors from Durdle Door
20.08.2025

What are those curved arcs in the sky? Meteors -- specifically, meteors from this year's Perseid meteor shower. Over the past few weeks, after the sky darkened, many images of Perseid meteors were captured separately and merged into a single frame, taken earlier.

Moon, Planets, and Rocket Trails
14.07.1999

Are you an early riser? Over the last month or so, the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn have come to adorn eastern skies before sunrise. In fact, astrophotographer Joe Orman anticipated that an early...

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula
18.02.1998

The first hint of what will become of our Sun was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of "annoying" diffuse objects not to be confused with "interesting" comets.

M63: The Sunflower Galaxy
27.06.2000

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 in the constellation of Canes Venaciti.