This terrific image by Amir H. Abolfath was featured in NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for October 14, 2020. The bright star inside the orange zone at lower left is Antares in Scorpius. The big and bright globular cluster Messier 4 sits to its lower right. The pink region is glowing hydrogen gas…
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The well-known Pleiades open star cluster (Messier 45) has long been the centre of indigenous star stories around the world, including South Pacific island groups. The Maori of New Zealand tie their new year to the appearance of the Pleiades in the pre-dawn sky during June/July. The area of sky shown here spans 2 degrees.…
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This image of Messier 13 in Hercules, the father of all globular star clusters visible from the Northern Hemisphere, was captured by Martin Pugh. Hundreds of thousands of stars, 25,000 light-years away from the sun, are arranged in a sphere by their mutual gravitational attraction. M13 is visible as a faint fuzzy patch to the…
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This mosaic of images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is centred on Mare Imbrium, the huge and ancient impact basin that covers much of the moon’s northern Earth-facing hemisphere. The mountains around its right (lunar west) edge are highlighted around the first quarter phase. Sinus Iridium and the curved Montes Jura are prominent about…
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A fine example of an annular solar eclipse during totality (annularity)! Much of Eastern North America will see a typical partial eclipse (with a bite out of the sun) already in progress at sunrise on Thursday, June 10. It will end at 6:39 am EDT. Use proper solar filters to view any of this eclipse…
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Messier 101 also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy and NGC 5457 is a large, face-on spiral galaxy in Ursa Major near the Big Dipper’s handle tip star, Alkaid. This Sloan digital Sky Survey image spans about 25 arc-minutes top to bottom – or about the diameter of the full moon. In June the galaxy is…
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Michael Watson of Toronto captured this trio of images of the April 15, 2014 lunar eclipse. He carefully positioned the moon to show its east to west motion and the circular shape of Earth’s shadow. For the total lunar eclipse of Wednesday, May 26, 2021 the moon will instead cross through the upper half of…
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This fantastic image of the First quarter moon was taken during mid-twilight on April 22, 2018 by Michael Watson of Toronto. The Lunar X, an hour or so past its peak, is visible below centre just to the right of the terminator. Michael’s galleries of images are hosted at https://www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/albums Hello, Late Spring Stargazers! Here…
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The prominent galaxies Messier 81 or Bode’s Nebula (left) and Messier 82 or the Cigar Galaxy (right) are located near the Big Dipper’s bowl in the northern sky. This image by AstroDoc Ron Brecher of Guelph, Ontario from February, 2017 spans about 1.5 degrees, or three full moon diameters. Messier 81 is large and bright…
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This image of the globular star cluster Messier 3 in Canes Venatici was captured by Adam Block at the Mount Lemmon sky Center, University of Arizona. The area of sky shown spans a little more than the full moon’s diameter. Hello, May Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of May 2nd, 2021…
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