Tag: Images

Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 8/15/2021

Next week’s night sky: From Saturday onward, the night is prime milky-way viewing. Go out at around 2 hours after sunset to look at the beautiful band of bright stars snaking across the sky! Martian Images Images of knobbly rocks and rounded hills are delighting scientists as NASA’s Curiosity rover climbs Mount Sharp, a 5-mile-tall mountain within the 96-mile-wide basin of Mars’ Gale Crater. The rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, highlights those features in a panorama captured on the 3,167th Martian day,. This location is particularly exciting: […]

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Messier 22

Messier 22 or M22, also known as NGC 6656, is an elliptical globular cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius, near the Galactic bulge region. It is one of the brightest globular clusters visible in the night sky. The brightest stars are around magnitude 11. Image (click for full size): Equipment Nikon D90 (Astro-Mod) Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Sky-Watcher Tripod AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6 Bahintov Mask Intervalometer Laptop All Sky Plate Solver Sharpcap Stellarium Acquisition: ISO 800 f/5.6 Bortle 2-4 Taken on 7/22/2021 183 light frames x 1 […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 6/6/2021

Next week’s night sky: When the moon completes the first quarter of its orbit around Earth at 11:54 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 17 (0354 June 18 GMT) its 90-degree angle away from the sun will cause us to see it half-illuminated — on its eastern side. In the first quarter, the moon always rises around noon and sets around midnight, so it is also visible in the afternoon daytime sky. The evenings surrounding the first quarter are the best ones for seeing the lunar terrain when […]

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The Pleiades up close

This star cluster is one of my favorite objects in the night sky. Equipment Sky-watcher Star Adventurer Sony Rx10iv Sky-watcher tripod Acquisition 59x2min exposures 30 darks 50 flats 50 bias iso 1600 f/4.0 540mm Stacking Stacked in DSS Editing stretched in gimp combined starless, non-starless, and original versions to preserve stars and nebulosity. Did you like this image? Let me know in the comments what I should image next!

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 12/20/2020

Next week’s night sky: The December full moon, traditionally known as the Oak Moon, Cold Moon, and Long Nights Moon, always shines in or near the stars of Gemini. Since it’s opposite the sun on this day of the lunar month, the moon is fully illuminated and rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. Full moons during the winter months reach as high in the sky as the summer noonday sun, and cast similar shadows. This is a great time to get a good look at the […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 11/29/2020

Next week’s night sky: Tuesday is the last quarter moon. This is a great time to focus on the terminator to see minuscule detail in the surface of the moon. The terminator is the line that divides light from dark. On Monday, December 14, the Geminids meteor shower peaks! This is usually the most spectacular meteor shower in December. Meteor rates can reach up to 120 meteors an hour! Combined with the new moon, this whoer should be a terrific finishing point for the astronomy of 2020. […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 10/4/2020

Next week’s night sky: Friday is the new moon. This means that the stars will be extra bright Friday evening, giving stargazers a great chance to look at the stars. This is also a great time to take photos of the stars because the moon will not ruin your photos. On Saturday, there is a rare double shadow transit of Jupiter, with the great red spot visible! A shadow transit happens when the shadows of moons cross a planet’s surface. The transit starts at 5:25 EDT and […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 9/20/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Tuesday, September 9, Saturn will appear to stand still. Usually, planets appear to move across the night sky and change places in reference to other stars. However, on this day, Saturn will move with the stars. This will make the planet a lot easier to find! Just look for the bright planet in the southern sky, then remember the pattern the stars make around it. Anytime during the night, you will be able to find that pattern and find Saturn!October 1 is […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 9/6/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, September 14, an extremely rare double transit of Jupiter will happen. What makes this transit special is that not only are there two transits happening at once, the great red spot will also be visible! To find Jupiter, go to stellarium-web.org.  Thursday is the new moon. This is a great time to go stargazing because the moon doesn’t blot out any stars. The butterfly nebula VLT captured a new image of the butterfly nebula!. But this cosmic bubble of gas, isn’t […]

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The key differences between a space and ground telescope.

Astronomy hinges on that ability to observe the sky, and to do that we need telescopes. Astronomers have telescopes nearly everywhere on Earth and many more telescopes in orbit.  But why do we need telescopes both on the Earth and in space? Why not just figure out which location is better, and just put all our telescopes there? The answer is much more complicated than it seems. There are numerous arguments for space telescopes and numerous arguments for ground telescopes. Advantages of space telescopes The biggest advantage […]

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