This view of the southern evening sky at 11 pm local time for the latitude of Toronto shows how the Milky Way rises from the southern horizon and arcs across the eastern sky at this time of the year. The coloured symbols and labels are a selection of the brighter deep sky objects sprinkled available…
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When the moon is full, and within hours on either side of that phase, there are no shadows cast anywhere. All of the variations we see are due to changes in the moon’s geology. This image by Michael nicely shows the numerous rays systems emanating from the younger craters, the various types of dark basalt…
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I captured this handheld smartphone image of the young crescent moon and the strong auroral display of May 10, 2024 behind my home in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. Conditions are again favorable for another spectacle if the sun sends a mass ejection in our direction over the next few days, before the moon brightens too much.…
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This Digital Sky survey image shows the Antenna Galaxies aka NGC 4038, 4039 in the constellation of Corvus, which shines brightly in the lower part of the southern sky on early June evenings. The bright segments are the cores of two galaxies in the process of merging by mutual gravitational attraction. Curved streams of stars…
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This image of the Snowglobe Globular Star Cluster (aka NGC 5466) in Boötes simulates the view through a telescope at 132x. The area covered by the red circular viewport covers a bit more than the full moon’s size in the sky. On a dark night, the cluster can be seen as a faint fuzzy patch…
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Hello, Mid-May Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of May 19th, 2024 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along to your friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics. You can also follow me on Twitter as @astrogeoguy! Unless otherwise noted, all times are expressed in Eastern Time.…
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I captured this image of the once-in-a-lifetime aurora borealis on May 10, 2024 at 10:41 pm, from the trail behind my house in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. Despite somethin cloud we were able to see the aurorae in motion. The green glow is from singly ionized oxygen. The blue arises from nitrogen and the purples come…
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This image of the Mice Galaxies (NGC 4676) obtained with the Hubble space Telescope. The two galaxies, 300 million light-years away from us, are in the process of merging, tugging on one another with gravity. Eventually, the stars will coalesce, likely into a far less interesting-looking elliptical galaxy. For now, the streams of stars extending…
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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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On April 10, 2024, my friend Alan Dyer captured this terrific image of the young moon (two days after the solar eclipse) shining above Uranus and Jupiter with moons. Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is below them. The comet’s tail is aimed upwards away from the sun, which had recently set below the horizon. Follow Alan on FaceBook…
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