A 212 Hour Exposure of Orion

The constellation of Orion is much more than three stars in a row. It is a direction in space that is rich with impressive nebulas. To better appreciate this well-known swath of sky, an extremely long exposure was taken over...

/ March 29, 2020

Stars Trail over Ragusa

In trying times, stars still trail in the night. Taken on March 14, this night skyscape was made by combining 230 exposures each 15 seconds long to follow the stars’ circular paths. The camera was fixed to a tripod on...

/ March 28, 2020

A Little Drop of Galaxy

A drop of water seems to hold an entire galaxy in this creative macro-astrophotograph. In the imaginative work of cosmic nature photography a close-up lens was used to image a previously made picture of a galaxy, viewed through a water...

/ March 27, 2020

Andromeda Station

This surreal picture isn’t from a special effects sci-fi movie. It is a digital composite of frames of the real Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, rising over a real mountain. Exposures tracking the galaxy and background stars have been...

/ March 26, 2020

Star Forming Region S106

Massive star IRS 4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106 Nebula (S106), featured here. A large disk of dust and...

/ March 25, 2020

A Black Hole Disrupts a Passing Star

What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole, then the star falls in completely — and everything vanishes. More likely, though, the star goes close enough to have...

/ March 24, 2020

From the Pleiades to the Eridanus Loop

If you stare at an interesting patch of sky long enough, will it look different? In the case of Pleiades and Hyades star clusters — and surrounding regions — the answer is: yes, pretty different. Long duration camera exposures reveal...

/ March 23, 2020

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano

These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly...

/ March 22, 2020

Comet ATLAS and the Mighty Galaxies

Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 was discovered by the NASA funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, the last comet discovery reported in 2019. Now growing brighter in northern night skies, the comet’s pretty greenish coma is at the upper left of...

/ March 21, 2020

Morning, Planets, Moon, and Montreal

Dawn’s early light came to Montreal, northern planet Earth, on March 18, the day before the vernal equinox. At the end of that nearly equal night the Moon stands above a dense constellation of urban lights in this serene city...

/ March 20, 2020