Basic astronomy and night sky information
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.
“We and our world are the minutiae and curiosa– galaxies are the grand realities.” -Leland Copeland
This wide-field image of the core of the Virgo cluster reveals several dozen of the more than 2,000 galaxies spread across our sky between the stars Denebola in Leo and Vindemiatrix in Virgo [Read more…] about Panorama of the Virgo Cluster
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Located in the Diablo mountain range east of San Jose, California, Lick Observatory is the world’s first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. It was founded in 1888 and has been part of the University of California ever since. This image by reader Marilyn Perry shows the Full Moon rising over the observatory in May 2015.
The location of Lick on Mt. Hamilton provides calm air and excellent viewing despite ambient light and pollution. The peak is normally above the level of the low cloud cover often seen in San Jose. The peak provides a stunning view to the west of the Valley of Heart’s Delight, now better known as Silicon Valley. To the east, the Sierra’s can be seen on a very clear day [Read more…] about Full Moon Over Lick Observatory
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Enjoy this short four-image GIF of the transit of the shadow of Ganymede across the face of Jupiter on April 14, 2015. Taken by Andrew Symes of Ottawa, Canada with an iPhone 6 and a Celestron NexStar 8SE alt-az telescope, this image also shows several belts and zones in the atmosphere of Jupiter including the prominent north and south equatorial belts, along with the possibly perpetual anticyclone of the Great Red Spot.
I posted my 1st animated GIF of Jupiter yesterday. iPhone images from April 14. Details here: https://t.co/tWY9muJwgq pic.twitter.com/seAAyUwSD0
— Andrew Symes (@FailedProtostar) April 24, 2015
