Geminids Meteors viewed from Chile, a four-hour composite imaged by Yuri Beletsky at Las Campanas Observatory in 2013. Orion is upside-down at left and the twin stars Castor and Pollux sit near bright Jupiter at centre. NASA APOD for December 8, 2019. Hello, mid-December, Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of December…
Read more
My friend Alan Dyer of Calgary, Alberta captured this wonderful wide-field image of the fully eclipsed moon on Tuesday morning, November 8, 2022. The brilliant white star Sirius (lower left), bright red Mars (top centre), and the blood red moon (far right) surround the winter stars of Orion and Taurus. Enjoy more of Alan’s work…
Read more
This gorgeous scene captures summer nights in Canada. It was taken by my friend Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn on April 23, 2022. While autumn will soon arrive, its earlier sunsets will allow us to continue to view the Milky Way’s treasures for some time to come. The pink patches in this image are nebulas. They are…
Read more
This spectacular Perseids meteor was captured by RASC member Don Hladiuk of Calgary at 3:53 am MDT on August 13, 2022. Follow Don on Twitter at @Astrogeo (Yes – we’re each other’s doppelganger!) Hello, mid-August Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of August 14th, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass…
Read more
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…
Read more
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.…
Read more
This image of spiral galaxy NGC 5248 (also known as Caldwell 45) in southwestern Boötes was captured by Adam Block’s team at Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, University of Arizona on March 3-4, 2011. The image spans 16 arc-minutes of sky, measuring left-to-right, or half the moon’s diameter. Hello, Spring Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for…
Read more
The glorious face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, is located near the bright star Alkaid, at the tip of the Big Dipper’s handle. Visible even in binoculars, it is nearly overhead on April evenings. (Deep Sky Survey image from Stellarium) Hello, mid-April Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the…
Read more
The Open cluster Messier 35, also known as the Shoe-Buckle Cluster and NGC 2168 sits near the westerly foot of Castor in Gemini. The small open cluster NGC 2158 is to the lower right of it in this image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The area of sky shown here measures about one finger’s…
Read more
This north-up image of the Little Beehive Cluster, Messier 41 in Canis Major, shows the hot blue and cooler golden stars. It covers a thumb’s width of sky, measuring top to bottom. The green circle represents the field of view in a telescope at low magnification, 1.5 degrees. Hello, Winter Astronomers! Here are your Astronomy…
Read more