This magical image of the sword of Orion was captured and processed by my friend John Deans when he was in Bancroft, Ontario on February of 2021. All three patches of light from top to bottom are visible to unaided eyes below Orion’s three-starred belt. Binoculars and backyard telescopes will reveal the spectacular details in…
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This simulated 3D model of the solar system shows the position of Earth on July 30 while it is crossing through the debris field dropped along the orbit of comet P/2008 Y12 (SOHO), producing the peak of the Southern Delta-Aquariids Meteor Shower. You can manipulate the model at the website https://www.meteorshowers.org/ Hello, Summer Stargazers! Here…
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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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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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This gorgeous image of the North America Nebula, and the Pelican Nebula to its right, was captured by Roman Kulesza. The pink colour arises from glowing hydrogen gas. Opaque dust in the foreground is separating the single large gas cloud into two nebulas, and producing the unique shapes. It was the SkyNews Photo of the…
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This image of Messier 13 in Hercules, the father of all globular star clusters visible from the Northern Hemisphere, was captured by Martin Pugh. Hundreds of thousands of stars, 25,000 light-years away from the sun, are arranged in a sphere by their mutual gravitational attraction. M13 is visible as a faint fuzzy patch to the…
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