The glowing red hydrogen in the Heart and Soul Nebulas, and the bright stars of the Double Cluster above them, are featured in this image by Adrien Klamerius, which spans about 10 degrees (or a fist’s diameter) of the sky. NASA APOD for September 24, 2016 Hello, December Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for…
Read more
This amazing image of Mars was taken on October 2, 2020 at 11:13 EDT by my friend Claudio Oriani of Richmond Hill, Ontario through his Celestron C8 SCT and a ZWO AS1224MC camera. The southern polar cap and the dark Syrtis Major regions are obvious. Hello, October Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the…
Read more
This image by Michael Watson of Toronto shows the beautiful and large Elephant Trunk Nebula, and the massive, red star Mu Cephei, aka Herschel’s Garnet Star, on its northern edge. The area of sky shown here covers about six by 12 times the diameter of the full moon, with north (towards Polaris) on the left.…
Read more
This simulated view of Jupiter shows the double shadow transit, with the Great Red Spot, that will occur on Friday night, August 14. This view is for 1 am EDT on Saturday morning. Ganymede’s shadow is cast by the large moon to the lower right of Jupiter. The event will be observable anywhere in the…
Read more
Ian Wheelband captured this close-up view of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) at 4:17 am on July 11, 2020 from his home in Nova Scotia. Note the brighter tail composed of dropped particles, and the slightly offset ion tail to its left. The stacked, combined 4- and 10-second exposure photograph was taken using his Nikon D7100…
Read more
This simulated view of Jupiter shows the transit of Jupiter’s moon Io and its shadow across Jupiter, accompanied by the Great Red Spot, on Tuesday, July 7 at 2:40 am EDT. A good backyard telescope will let you view the 2.5-hour event, although a telescope might flip and/or mirror this view. Hello, July Stargazers! Here…
Read more
A photograph of the multiple star Asellus in Boötes, from Stellarium’s digital sky survey (DSS). Hello, June Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of Jue 7th, 2020 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along to your friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics. You can also follow…
Read more
This image of the LeoTrio of Galaxies was captured by Marcus Bauer. It was a NASA APOD for April 18, 2019. Top to bottom, the image spans one degree of the sky. The Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628) is at centre left. M65 is at top centre and M66 is at centre right. Happy Mother’s Day!…
Read more
This simulated view of Venus shows the shape it will appear when viewed through a backyard telescope this month. Galileo was the first to note that Venus changed in apparent size and shape. Hello, April Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of April 12th, 2020 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to send…
Read more
The bright and large open star cluster known as the Pleiades or Messier 45 is composed of sibling stars (the daughters of Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology) that formed of the same gas cloud. Interstellar dust in the foreground scatters the stars’ light with a blue colour. The cluster is very easily seen with…
Read more