Tag: Venus

A Pretty Moon Every Evening, Morning Mars Swats Saturn, Evening Venus Kisses the Seven Sisters, and Afternoon Astronomy Online!

This composite of many successive images by Kris Smith shows the International Space Station flying across the disk of the full moon.Photographing these transits require careful planning and split-second timing. Another one will occur for Toronto on Saturday evening, April 4, 2020. NASA APOD for Nov 14, 2016. Hello, April Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy…
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Stargazing Suggestions, the Pretty Moon Poses with Evening Venus, and Morning Planet Antics!

This lovely widefield image of Auriga (the Charioteer) was taken by Alan Dyer of Calgary on January 23, 2011. It nicely shows the rich clusters and star fields that populate that constellation’s circlet of stars. The Flaming star Nebula is the red patch. Other knots of stars are open clusters. Capella, or Alpha Aurigae, is…
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The Equinox Brings Spring, the Crescent Moon Passes Pre-dawn Planets while morning Mars Meets Jupiter, and Dark Sky Delights!

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…
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The Largest Full Supermoon of 2020 Slides Over a Star, Bright Stars, Venus Passes Uranus, and Morning Planets in Motion!

This image of the moon by Michael Watson of Toronto was taken 9 hours after it was full on February 22, 2016 – replicating how the March, 2020 full moon will appear on Monday night. Note that the moon’s right-hand edge shows some shadowing – evidence that it is slightly past full. The many bright…
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We Leap into March with a Lunar X, the Evening Moon Slides by Several Star Clusters, Venus near Uranus, and Betelgeuse Brightens!

The Open cluster Messier 35, also known as the Shoe-Buckle cluster sits near the feet 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 width of the sky,…
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The Goddess of Love Gleams in the West with Maximum Mercury, the Waning Moon Leaves Lovers’ Treats, and Pretty Planets Parade before Dawn!

This heart-shaped feature on Mars was imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera in 1999. It measures 2.3 km across at its widest, and is located on the eastern flank of the Alba Patera volcano in northern Tharsis. The sunlight is illuminating the scene from the left. The feature is a pit formed by collapse within…
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Lunar Delights and Other Bright Sights, Speedy Mercury Moves towards Venus, and Mars Parties with Jupiter in Morning!

This image of the Winter Hexagon / Football was taken by Jeff Dai. Start with bright Sirius just above the hills at lower right, then head straight up to Rigel, and to the upper left to reddish Betelgeuse, and then bright yellow Capella on the left. Next head down to Castor and Pollux, and finally…
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A Beautiful Evening Moon, Queen Venus Kisses the Sea-King, and Groundhog Day Marks Mid-Winter!

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! This beautiful object is called the Rosette Nebula (or NGC 2244). It’s located in the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn), just to the left (east) of Orion. The Rosette is a cradle of glowing Hydrogen gas that has birthed about 2500 young stars in its centre. This image…
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A Mostly Morning Moon, Venus nears Neptune as Mercury Moves up, and Touring Awesome Orion!

This spectacular astrophotograph of Orion’s Sword by Michael Watson of Toronto has been annotated to highlight the many and varied deep sky objects in this part of the sky. The colourful Messier 42 nebula is glowing by the light of young stars formed within it. The area shown here covers about 2 finger widths of…
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The Bright Moon Touches Taurus’ Horn’s Tip, then Dips a Toe into Earth’s Shadow, while Venus and Mars Shine at Dusk and Dawn!

This wide field image of Orion was captured on January 2, 2020 by Alan Dyer of Alberta, Canada. Orange-tinted Betelgeuse, which marks Orion’s shoulder (top centre), normally shines as bright as Orion’s opposite foot – the bright, blue star Rigel. In the last few weeks, Betelgeuse has diminished noticeably in apparent brightness – a possible…
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