This Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image shows the major features of Mare Imbrium “the Sea of Rains”, including its eastern ring of mountain ranges, the dark crater Plato, the “islands” in the north, Archimedes, partially submerged ghost craters, and subtle wrinkles. NASA Hello, September Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of September 8th,…
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This image from the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory shows the spectacular globular star cluster Messier 4. This great ball of ancient stars is one of the closest of such stellar systems to the Earth and appears in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion) close to…
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My friend Denise Chilton took this terrific image of the completely eclipsed sun from southeastern Quebec on April 8, 2024. The shape of the white corona will be replicated in all the totality photos from that day. Her image also captured the large pink prominence that extended beyond the southern pole of the moon. Hello,…
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On Tuesday evening, January 16, the lunar terminator will fall to the west of three prominent craters Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina and throw into stark relief many other craters in the lunar highlands. The features will be visible in quality binoculars and through any telescope. (from 2024 NASA Lunar Visualization tool) Hello, Mid-January Stargazers! Here…
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Andrea Girones of Ottawa captured this amazing image of Saturday’s annular solar eclipse from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She used a Lunt 40mm solar telescope, an ASI 174MM camera on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer tracker. Hello, Autumn Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of October 15th, 2023 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to…
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This image by Michael Watson of Toronto nicely captured earthshine on the waxing crescent moon after sunset on March 8, 2019. Michael’s terrific galleries of moon images are hosted on his Flickr page. Hello, May Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of May 21st, 2023 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass…
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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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An ISS transit on Thursday night, January 21 will pass across the moon’s disk for 0.6 seconds at 6:08:39.8 pm EST. The pass will be observable by observers across Port Perry, northern Toronto / southern Richmond Hill, Brampton, and Cambridge, Ontario. Find details at https://transit-finder.com/ and www.astrogeo.ca/skylights/. This image by Eric Holland was taken from…
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This amazing photograph by Sergio Scauso of Cordoba, Argentina shows the moon occulting Mars on August 9, 2020. NASA APOD for August 15, 2020. Since the moon travels within the same band of sky surrounding the ecliptic that the planets do, its large angular size allows it to pass in front of the planets from…
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This stunning image of Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was captured in cottage country, near Haliburton, Ontario, by Kersti Meema of Toronto using her Canon T7i camera. She took the image at 11:15 EDT on July 13, 2020. Serendipitously, she also captured an auroral display! The fainter, blue ion tail of the comet can be discerned…
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