Category: Skylights

Science Outreach Specialists

The Terminator Returns, Peering at Pre-dawn Solar Neighbours, Peeking at Polaris, and Saving Daylight!

The southeastern sky, shown here at 6 am local time at the latitude of Toronto, hosts the bright planets Venus and Mars, with Saturn to the east (lower left). Before the sky brightens too much, observers can try to spot fainter main belt asteroid Vesta near Venus and Mars. Hello, March Stargazers! Here are your…
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Pretty Planets Kiss and Dance at Dawn, and Some Dark Sky Delights Til the Librated Cat Comes Back!

The Sword of Orion imaged by John Deans in Bancroft, Ontario on February 2021. This image covers about a thumb’s width of sky, top-to-bottom. The trapezium cluster lies in the heart of the nebula (above centre). Hello, March Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of February 27th, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel…
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Waning Luna Passes Pretty Planets in Morning, Vesta Visits Mars, and Walking the Dog!

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…
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See Solar System Sparkles, Valentine’s Night Delights, and Full Snow Moon Features While the Love Goddess Gleams at Dawn!

This beautiful image shows the glowing pink hydrogen gas of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237) in Monoceros (the Unicron) and its internal star cluster NGC 2244. It was captured by Stan Noble of Swift Current, Saskatchewan in 2017/18. The Rosette, which covers about a thumb’s width of sky, can be seen in binoculars in a…
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Cold Temp Telescope Tips, Pre-dawn Planets, Lunar Libration Shows Seas, and the Waxing Moon Passes the Football!

This image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the entire Mare Imbrium region. On Thursday and Friday this week, the terminator will bisect the huge region, casting in stark relief the ringed mountain ranges to the east: Montes Alpes, Montes Caucasus, and Montes Apenninus. On Saturday night, the terminator will highlight the curved Montes Jura…
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Groundhogs Have a Happy Lunar New Year, Young Moon Meets Jupiter, Mars Moves Past Messiers, and Winter Way Wonders!

This amazing image of the young crescent moon, which triggered the Lunar New Year, was captured by Michael Watson from mid-town Toronto on February 19, 2015 at 6:37 pm EST, when the Moon was 23 hours 48 minutes past its new phase. Such moons are difficult to see it and to photograph. Happy Lunar New…
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A Lonely Evening Jupiter Misses Mars and Venus Partying at Dawn, and Moonless Evenings Invite Peeks at Perfect Perseus!

This image of the Fossil Footprint Nebula NGC 1491 in Perseus was captured by Adam Block at Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona. This image is nearly one degree wide, or about finger’s width. Wikipedia Hello, Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of January 23rd, 2022 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass…
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A Mini Full Wolf Moon, Saturn Slips Away at Sunset, Venus Joins Morning Mars, and a Peek at Perseus!

This image of the Alpha Persei Moving Group, also known as Melotte 20, was captured by Martin Gembec of Czechoslovakia in 2007. Mirfak is the very bright star above centre. The scattered bright stars are stellar siblings. The golden star to lower left is Sigma Persei. The entire image spans several finger widths left-to-right, or…
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The Terminator Tips Over, a Lonely Lunar X, and the Gibbous Moon Greets Ceres in the Winter Football!

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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Merry Perihelion, Max Sized Venus and Maximum Mercury, Dual Lunar Phases, Meteors from a Fossil Constellation, and Three Deep Sky Tours!

With unaided eyes, three patches of light make up the sword of Orion, which hangs below his famous 3-starred belt. My friend John Deans of Toronto captured this image of Orion’s Sword while in Bancroft during February, 2021. Even binoculars will reveal that the central patch of light is the splendid Orion Nebula, also known…
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