This fantastic image of the Lion Nebula, also known as Sharpless-132, was imaged and processed by Tammy Foley. She gathered 19 hours of exposure time through various filters for it. During evening in early August, the lion is prowling the northeastern sky between the W of Cassiopeia and the bright star Deneb in Cygnus, but…
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The Dumbbell Nebula, imaged by Steve McKinney, is a large planetary nebula in Vulpecula (the Fox). It’s visible (without colour) in a backyard telescope. Planetary nebulae are the corpses of stars with mass similar to our sun. This one resembles and apple core! This image covers a patch of sky about as wide as a…
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A comparison of images of Stephan’s Quintet of galaxies in Pegasus, taken in infrared by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022 (left) and the visible and near-infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 (right). The spiral galaxy at left is NGC 7320. It is only 40 million light-years away. The rest of…
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In celebration of July 1 in Canada and July 4 in the USA, here is a photo of the Firecracker Galaxy, also known as NGC 6946 and Caldwell 12. The magnitude 9.6 face-on, type SAB spiral galaxy, 25 million light-years distant, is visible in good binoculars and backyard telescopes under dark skies. It straddles the…
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An image of globular the star cluster Messier 10, also known as NGC 6254, by Höcherl. The cluster spans about 40% of the full moon’s diameter. At magnitude 6.4, it can be seen with unaided eyes at a dark location, and in binoculars and through any size of telescope. It is estimated to be 14,300…
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This terrific image by Amir H. Abolfath shows a deep exposure of the sky surrounding the bright reddish star Antares, the heart of Scorpius, which shines over the southern horizon on late June evenings. Antares is within the bright orange region at lower left. To its right is the enormous globular star cluster Messier 4.…
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A triangle of dark ash deposits left by long-extinct volcanoes are easily visible in the crater Alphonsus using any size of telescope when the moon is fully illuminated. Hello, Moon in June Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of June 12th, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along to…
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A high resolution image of the moon’s Imbrium Basin, captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. From Monday to Friday this week, the lunar terminator will march across this huge feature in the moon’s northern hemisphere, showing off its best aspects. Hello, June Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of June 5th, 2022…
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