Cancel Your Plans We’re Thinking About The Pale Blue Dot Voyager Pic Tonight

NGC 2403, Stardust

2024 March 5

NGC 2170: Angel Nebula Abstract Art Image Credit & Copyright: David Moulton

Explanation: Is this a painting or a photograph? In this celestial abstract art composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170, also known as the Angel Nebula, shines just above the image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. Like the common household items that abstract painters often choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars featured here are also commonly found in a setting like this one – a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The giant molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be over 60 light-years across.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240305.html

New pics of Io just dropped

More are over here at NASA's Juno probe site.

WR 134, Cygnus

The Venus girdle (Cestum veneris) is a comb jelly in the family Cestidae. The colorless species are transparent when suspended in water, except for their iridescent rows of comb plates. In other words, they majestic as fuck. Love to sea it 🌊

Nu Scorpii

One of the most interesting areas of the night sky, Scorpius holds a myriad of nebula and beautifully contrasting coloured stars.

Moving towards the tail, you'll find Nu Scorpii a binary star system 7 stars.

If that alone isn't enough to get your mind wondering how all these stars are orbiting each other, the star system itself is the eye of a horses head ! Albeit a nebulous head.

IC 4592 is a reflective nebula, with the blue light reflected from fine dust, that blue light is coming from the Nu Scorpii system above.

Pull out and you'll see the whole region contains many star forming areas with reflective features.

Andromeda, If It Was Brighter

One of the largest structures in the night sky is visible with the naked eye, but if you live in a city, it's literally hiding just out of sight. Even in a dark area, it's not the easiest to immediately see, but the above image has brightened it up for us, to show us what the galaxy would look like, if only the sky was dark enough and the galaxy was a bit brighter.

The moon comparison is the best one, that is something we can all see in the night sky (unless you live in the UK, where you see mostly clouds).

Now imagine that galaxy stretching several moon-spans across the sky. That I hope gives you a minor taste of what it's like when using a small telescope or even binoculars, you first come across it.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, then it's well worth the search.

Near sunset, look for 3 objects which should be easy to locate, Venus and Jupiter (I'll come to this in a moment) low in the sky, the W of Cassiopeia and the Seven Sisters (Pleiades), and from that, you should find the location. Bare in mind it's several times the size of the moon, so you don't have to be too accurate, but if you can find the stars of Andromeda, that will help refine your search.

And finally that brings me on to the real star of the sky currently, Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest planets, very close together.

In fact, if you do have a really good pair of binoculars, or small telescope, this is a great time to view them. Venus often appears as a crescent like a phase of the moon, and Jupiter has it's 4 Galilean moons to spot.

Happy Spotting !

by Daniel Cid

Glorious Neptune, observed by Voyager 2 on August 24, 1989.

(NASA/Kevin Gill)