M106/NGC 4258 Nebula In X-ray, Radio, Infrared And Optical Light

Galaxy Wars: M81 and M82 

These two galaxies are far far away, 12 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear. On the left, with grand spiral arms and bright yellow core is spiral galaxy M81, some 100,000 light-years across. On the right marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular galaxy M82. The pair have been locked in gravitational combat for a billion years. Their last go-round lasted about 100 million years and likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the richness of M81's spiral arms. M82 was left with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. In the next few billion years, their continuing gravitational encounters will result in a merger, and a single galaxy will remain.

Image Credit & Copyright: Dietmar Hager, Torsten Grossmann

The "ice giants" Uranus and Neptune appear to glow red-orange in new photos taken using Hawaii's Keck Observatory. The pictures show Uranus' rings and several moons, as well as Neptune's largest moon, Triton.

 credits : livescience.com

Mercury in color

Photo Credit : NASA

Crab Nebula, zoomed in.

Happy Solstice 2020!

The evening began with a beautiful sunset:

...though pretty clouds meant Jupiter and Saturn's closest dance was a little fuzzy:

They'd traded places and moved much closer than on Saturday:

This longer Saturday exposure shows Saturn's biggest moon, Titan (arrow), and all four of Jupiter's Galilean moons:

...and here's Jupiter's moons plus Titan (arrow; another arrow points out Amalthea hugging its parent world) tonight:

Happy Great Conjunction Day!

NGC 3576 or the Ibex Nebula which looks like a celestial Ibex mountain goat with those striking horn like nebulous clouds, is situated near the Southern Cross – a four star constellation in the southern hemisphere

Credit: Flickr : Strongmanmike2002

The Ion Tail of New Comet SWAN

Image Credit & Copyright: Gerald Rhemann

Source : apod.nasa.gov

Mars as seen from Hubble, snapped on April 27th through May 6th, 1999.

Image Credit : NASA COMMONS

M7 : Open star cluster in Scorpius

Image credit & Copyright : Lorand Fenyes