This Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image shows the major features of Mare Imbrium “he Sea of Rains”, including its eastern ring of mountain ranges,dark crater Plato, the “islands” in the north, Archimedes, and the subtle wrinkles. Other lunar maria are out of frame below the large crater Copernicus (botton centre). NASA Hello, Spring Stargazers! Here are…
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Prominent features on the moon for unaided eyes, binoculars, and backyard telescopes have been marked on this image by Michael Watson of Toronto. While none of the equipment is visible from Earth, the red numerals mark the Apollo landing sites. Hello, Mid-winter Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of February 18th, 2024…
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This image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the fascinating Aristarchus Plateau. The crater Aristarchus at lower right is very prominent, and can be seen even with unaided eyes as a very bright patch. To its left is the similar-sized, but darker crater Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri, the largest sinuous rille on the moon, starts…
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My friend Alan Dyer of Alberta captured this spectacular image of a lone Geminids meteor streaking across an aurorae-filled sky on December 13, 2023. From Collingwood, Ontario I saw two terrific Geminids in one hour on December 14. Follow Alan’s @amazingskyguy account on X.com and visit his ww.amazingsky.com page for more. Hello, Start-of-Winter Stargazers! Here…
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This image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the fascinating Aristarchus Plateau. The crater Aristarchus at lower right is very prominent, and can be seen even with unaided eyes as a very bright patch. To its left is the similar-sized, but darker crater Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri, the largest sinuous rille on the moon, starts…
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This spectacular image by my friend Andrea Girones was taken recently at Morant’s Curve, Alberta using a DSLR with a 20mm lens on a star tracking mount. It captures the arc of faintly glowing reddish hydrogen gas around Orion and the nimbus around his head (at left), the bright compact Rosette Nebula (upper left), Mars…
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A portion of a frame from NASA’s Lunar Visualization Tool, showing the northwestern quadrant of the moon at 9 pm on January 14, 2022, annotated. The Dial-A-Moon page is at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4955 Hello, January Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of January 9th, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along…
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This gorgeous image of the region of sky between Taurus’ triangular face and the bright orange star Aldebaran and the blue Pleiades star Cluster was taken by Amir H. Abolfath using his Canon EOS6D camera on a Star Adventurer mount. It covers a span of sky of about 19 degrees (two fist diameters) top-to-bottom, and…
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This image of Messier 35, also nick-named the Shoe-Buckle Cluster, was captured by Fred Espenak on March 29, 2011 from his home in Arizona. He affixed his Canon EOS 550D camera to a Takahashi 180mm Astrograph telescope. The photo spans about a thumb’s width top to bottom. Messier 35 is about 2800 light-years away from…
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