This spectacular photograph of the pre-dawn zodiacal light was captured on September 25, 2020 at 5:37 am by Malcolm Park of Prince Edward County, Ontario. The bright point at centre is the planet Venus. The knot of stars above Venus is Messier 44, also known as the Beehive Cluster, in Cancer. Malcolm’s gallery of beautiful…
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This image by Michael Watson of Toronto shows the beautiful and large Elephant Trunk Nebula, and the massive, red star Mu Cephei, aka Herschel’s Garnet Star, on its northern edge. The area of sky shown here covers about six by 12 times the diameter of the full moon, with north (towards Polaris) on the left.…
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This amazing photograph by Sergio Scauso of Cordoba, Argentina shows the moon occulting Mars on August 9, 2020. NASA APOD for August 15, 2020. Since the moon travels within the same band of sky surrounding the ecliptic that the planets do, its large angular size allows it to pass in front of the planets from…
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This simulated view of Jupiter shows the double shadow transit, with the Great Red Spot, that will occur on Friday night, August 14. This view is for 1 am EDT on Saturday morning. Ganymede’s shadow is cast by the large moon to the lower right of Jupiter. The event will be observable anywhere in the…
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This image of Mars, captured using a camera affixed to his 8″ SCT telescope, was taken by my friend Claudio Oriani at his home in Richmond Hill on July 28, 2020. It features some Mars’ most prominent features, such as Hellas (bright area to the left), Syrtis Major (dark area) and the southern polar cap…
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This simulated view of Jupiter shows the transit of Jupiter’s moon Io and its shadow across Jupiter, accompanied by the Great Red Spot, on Tuesday, July 7 at 2:40 am EDT. A good backyard telescope will let you view the 2.5-hour event, although a telescope might flip and/or mirror this view. Hello, July Stargazers! Here…
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A close-up view of Sinus Iridum and the Golden Handle to its west. The large feature is located in the northwestern (upper left) quadrant of the moon’s disk. The handle effect is visible with sharp, unaided eyes, and through binoculars and backyard telescopes. Note the N-S aligned dorsae, or wrinkle ridges. Image from Wikipedia. Happy…
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The Moon as it will appear at 11 pm Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday, June 25, 2020. The prominent, dark, round crater Theophilus located mid-moon, near the terminator line, will change in appearance each night this week as its rim, and then its floor, fills with sunlight. These hourly images are available from NASA’s Moon…
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This image of the Messier 13 globular star cluster in Hercules was taken by Martin Pugh. The cluster is composed of thousands of old, blue and yellow stars collected into a spherical ball orbiting our galaxy’s core. It’s located about 25,000 light-years from our sun. This image spans about 30 by 40 arc-minutes, slightly larger…
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A photograph of the multiple star Asellus in Boötes, from Stellarium’s digital sky survey (DSS). Hello, June Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of Jue 7th, 2020 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…
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