A portion of a frame from NASA’s Lunar Visualization Tool, showing the northwestern quadrant of the moon at 9 pm on January 14, 2022, annotated. The Dial-A-Moon page is at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4955 Hello, January Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of January 9th, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along…
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With unaided eyes, three patches of light make up the sword of Orion, which hangs below his famous 3-starred belt. My friend John Deans of Toronto captured this image of Orion’s Sword while in Bancroft during February, 2021. Even binoculars will reveal that the central patch of light is the splendid Orion Nebula, also known…
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As shown above, on Tuesday, January 4, 2022 from 6:30 am to 6:34 am EST, the International Space Station will fly high overhead of the GTA in an extremely bright pass, exiting Earth’s shadow in the northwestern sky, and then flying through the Big Dipper before setting below the east-southeastern horizon. Artificial satellites are visible…
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This image of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was taken by Rolando Ligustri (CARA Project, CAST) and Lukas Demetz, while the comet was in outburst, under dark Namibian skies on December 21. The image spans three finger widths, left to right.NASA APOD image for December 25, 2021. Happy New Year, Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights…
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As shown above, on Friday, January 1, 2022 from 7:16 am to 7:22 am EST, the International Space Station will fly high over the GTA in a very bright pass, exiting Earth’s shadow over the northwestern horizon, and then flying through the Little Dipper before setting below the east-southeastern horizon near Vega. Artificial satellites are…
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This image of the Pleiades star cluster from Stellarium shows the “sisters” shrouded by blue nebulosity – their stars’ light scattering from foreground dust. Their parent stars Atlas and Pleione are huddled at top left. The image spans about 2 finger widths of the sky, or 2 degrees. Happy Solstice, Winter Stargazers! Here are your…
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As shown above, on Monday, December 20, 2021 from 7:09 am to 7:16 am EST, the International Space Station will fly high overhead of the GTA in an extremely bright pass, rising from the west-southwestern horizon, and then flying through the Big Dipper before setting below the northeastern horizon near Vega. Artificial satellites are visible…
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This terrific image of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was captured by RASC member Paul Mortfield using RASC’s Robotic Telescope in the sierra Mountains of California on December 8, 2021 at 4 am PST. The green glow of the coma is apparent, and the ion tail points anti-sunward. Hello, mid-December Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights…
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As shown above, on Saturday, December 18, 2021 from 7:08 am to 7:14 am EST, the International Space Station will fly over the GTA in a very bright pass, rising from the south-southwestern horizon, and then flying past the bright star Vega just before setting below the east-northeastern horizon. Artificial satellites are visible because they…
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On November 24, 2021 Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) passed between two well-known galaxies, the Whale (top right) and the Hockey Stick (lower left), otherwise known as NGC 4631 and NGC 4656, respectively. Gregg Ruppel of Tucson, Arizona captured this beautiful image of the rendezvous through his telescope-mounted astro-camera. This image, which spans 1 degrees of…
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