Contemplating the Sky
13.08.2002

Have you contemplated your sky recently? Last night was a good one for midnight meditators at many northerly locations as meteors from the Perseid meteor shower frequently streaked through. The Perseid meteor shower has slowly been building to a crescendo but should continue to be rewarding tonight and into the week.

A Cerro Tololo Sky
9.11.2002

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.

M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy from VLT
11.05.2003

M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra, majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered...

In the Center of 30 Doradus
21.02.1999

In the center of 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. The center of this cluster, known as R136, is boxed in the upper right portion of the above picture.

The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
28.03.1999

Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies house billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does.

A Flock of Stars
6.09.2008

Only a few stars can be found within ten light-years of our lonely Sun, situated near an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. But if the Sun were found within one of our galaxy's star clusters, thousands of stars might occupy a similar space.

Atacama s Cloudy Night
27.07.2013

Storm clouds do sometimes come to Chile's Atacama desert, known as the driest place on Earth. These washed through the night sky just last month during the winter season, captured in this panoramic view.

Melotte 15 in the Heart
27.12.2013

Cosmic clouds seem to form fantastic shapes in the central regions of emission nebula IC 1805. Of course, the clouds are sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from massive hot stars in the nebula's newborn star cluster, Melotte 15.

M100: A Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
25.12.2018

Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a grand design spiral galaxy. It is a large galaxy of over 100 billion stars with well-defined spiral arms that is similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Star Factory Messier 17
8.09.2023

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1/3 degree wide field of view spans over 30 light-years.