Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

Astronomy Images and Video

Beautiful and interesting images and video of the night sky including stars, planets, the Milky Way, and deep-sky objects taken through a camera lens or through a telescope.

Dawn Sky – Crescent Moon, Mercury, Regulus, and Orion

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

Late-summer sunrise from Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho.

After a cloudy night, the sky cleared as dawn arrived on a late summer morning as seen from Bruneau Dunes State Park in southern Idaho on September 8, 2018. Here you see a very slender waning crescent Moon to the upper left of the star Regulus. Mercury is at the lower middle of this image, just above the clouds. Just minutes earlier, the constellation Orion tried to peak through the early-morning clouds (see below) [Read more…] about Dawn Sky – Crescent Moon, Mercury, Regulus, and Orion

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Lunar Sunrise, Lunar Sunset

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video


The folks at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, MD, have put together a glorious video of an accelerated sunrise and sunset on the Moon that will reward you with some of the finest images ever taken of our nearest neighbor, and perhaps inspire you to see some of these features with your own telescope. NASA set this visualization of sunrises and sunsets on the Moon to the strains of Claude Debussy’s most famous work, Clair de Lune. Watch the whole thing. It’s a great way to spend a few minutes.

From NASA’s notes [Read more…] about Lunar Sunrise, Lunar Sunset

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The Outer Rim of the Milky Way

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

The outer rim of the Milky Way as seen in late summer towards the constellations Cassiopeia and Perseus.

“Peer at things up close and you may learn their true form
but guessed at from afar, they seem like something else.
Vastness such as this is beyond comprehension:
all I can do is sigh in endless wonder”. – Su Tung-P’o (1060 A.D.)

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Cosmic Shipwreck

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

The summer Milky Way and an abandoned sailboat in rural northern Virginia. Click to open in a new window. Image credit: Brian Ventrudo.

An abandoned sailboat in a grassy field in northern Virginia makes for a good, if unexpected, foreground for this image of the summer Milky Way. Mars is at lower left, while Saturn is below center, and just below the airplane trail. The silvery rectangle of stars above the plane trail is the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (Messier 24). Many pink nebulae and silver-gray star clusters fleck the trail of the Milky Way. Look to the upper left of the image to see the little upside-down ‘Coat Hanger’ asterism known as Collinder 399.

Image taken on July 8, 2018 near Warrenton, VA, with a Nikon D750 and Tamron 15-30mm lens at f/2.8, a NiSi natural night filter, ISO 3200, 20 seconds.

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Moon Viewing on the Streets of L.A.

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

A New View of the Moon from Alex Gorosh on Vimeo.

Here’s a short video to brighten your day. The writer and film maker Wylie Overstreet took his big 12″ Newtonian telescope into the streets of Los Angeles to show the Moon to passersby. The result? Well, see for yourself. But it’s nice to know that so many overstimulated city dwellers can still enjoy nature at its finest.

You can see a thousand pictures of the Moon, but it’s never the same experience as seeing it for yourself, especially through a good telescope. Even if you don’t know the name of a single crater or sea, the Moon’s stark beauty, the etched features and long shadows and large range of gray scale and brightness, make it one of the most appealing and accessible sights in the sky. And as more experienced stargazers know, you can get the same experience when seeing much fainter objects. With a little practice, of course.

This fine little production is a great reminder that we should look up more often. And when possible, share what you see with those around you.

 

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