Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 16: Triangle in the sky The Moon passes 0.6° south of the bright star Antares at 9 A.M. EDT. By evening, our satellite sits near the border of Scorpius and Ophiuchus, some 6° east (to the upper left) of Antares. TheyContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, September 17: The Moon and the Scorpion"

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Today I’ll be telling you about 10 of my favorite autumn deep-sky objects, with suggestions for viewing them. I hope you’ll enjoy this list, and I’ll share some other deep-sky favorites of mine from time to time in the future. What’s a large telescope? The notion of what’s big changes from observer to observer, butContinue reading "Autumn observing targets for large telescopes"

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When the Artemis 2 crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10, the excitement was palpable — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen had swung around the Moon, broken a human spaceflight distance record, and come home safely. But for the Artemis program, it was just the beginning. Between April’sContinue reading "Why we need in-orbit refueling to return to the Moon"

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On June 16, 1888, Alexander Friedmann was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. An keen student from a young age, Friedmann studied mathematics and meteorology at St. Petersburg State University and the Aerological Observatory in Pavlovsk. After air force service in World War I, Friedmann taught at several institutions and traveled to discuss his research. InContinue reading "Sept. 16, 1925: Death of Alexander Friedmann"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 15: View the false dawn Rising around sunset and highest in the early-morning hours before sunrise is the constellation Triangulum. This tiny triangular star pattern is perfect for evening or morning observers: Around 10 P.M. local daylight time, it’s high enoughContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, September 16: Triangle in the sky"

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In a groundbreaking announcement, the U.S. Space Force stated publicly on Monday, Sept. 14, that it currently has on-orbit weapons in space. Department of the Air Force Secretary Troy Meink’s keynote address at the 2026 Air and Space Cyber Conference focused on plans to modernize the Air Force against AI-powered weapons and capabilities wielded byContinue reading "U.S. confirms it has weapons in orbit"

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Telescope Live gives astrophotographers access to world-class imaging data.

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Mike Selby/Warren Keller, taken from El Sauce Observatory, Chile NGC 6902 is a rarely-imaged face-on spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Sagittarius. Its outer blue arms are filamentary, winding around a bright, yellow core of older stars. The image was taken with a 17-inch PlaneWave CDK astrograph and LRGBContinue reading "A feathery spiral in Sagittarius"

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After over 7,000 days in space, the Cassini mission ended on Sept. 15, 2017. Since its Oct. 15, 1997 launch, the spacecraft had returned a wealth of new knowledge and images of Saturn and its moons. Thanks to Cassini’s observations, researchers discovered liquid methane lakes on Titan, the potential habitability of Enceladus and the geysersContinue reading "Sept. 15, 2017, Cassini’s Grand Finale"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 14: Connect four The time around the equinox is one of the best opportunities to catch sight of the ethereal zodiacal light, the soft glow generated by dust that orbits the Sun along the plane of the solar system, the ecliptic.Continue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, September 15: View the false dawn"

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Rocket launches this week On Monday, Sept. 14 at 9:21 p.m. EST, Avio — a publicly traded Italian aerospace company headquartered near Rome — is set to launch a Vega C rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, carrying two Earth-observation satellites for the European Space Agency (ESA). The first, Sentinel-3C, is theContinue reading "Europe launches two Earth-observation satellites amidst a busy week for China"

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On Sept. 14, 1915, John Dobson was born in Bejing. His family moved to San Francisco to avoid political turmoil in China in 1927, and Dobson went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in chemistry. Then, in 1944, he entered the Ramakrishna Order. During his 23 years as a monk, Dobson’s personalContinue reading "Sept. 14, 1915: The birth of John Dobson"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 10: Uranus is stationary With dark, moonless skies tonight, let’s go galaxy hunting. By 9 P.M. local daylight time, Pegasus is already high in the east, the Great Square easily giving away its location. The northern part of this constellation holdsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, September 11: Visit the Deer Lick Group"

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Friday, September 11Already high in the north after sunset, the planetary nebula NGC 6543 in Draco is famously called the Cat’s Eye Nebula. It’s best seen with a large telescope, but even a small scope will pick it up and show it off in tonight’s moonless sky.  Two hours after sunset, you’ll find the Cat’sContinue reading "The Sky This Week from September 11 to 18: Catch the zodiacal light"

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TENERIFE, Canary Islands, Sept. 8, 2026 — Fifteen years after STARMUS brought together the legends who defined the first age of human space exploration, the Festival will welcome the explorers who have opened its newest chapter. Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen will attend STARMUS VIII — TheContinue reading "Artemis 2 crew lands at Starmus VII — 15 years after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Leonov launched its lengacy"

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Yevgeny Khrunov was born Sept. 10, 1933, in Prudy, Russia. A Soviet Air Force pilot, he was selected as one of the first cosmonauts on Feb. 25, 1960, along with 19 others including Yuri Gagarin, Aleksei Leonov, and Andriyan Nikolayev. Though not part of the Vanguard Six, Khrunov would make history on the Soyuz 4/SoyuzContinue reading "Sept. 10, 1933: The birth of Yevgeny Khrunov"

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Patrick Cosgrove from Honeoye Falls, New York Sharpless 2–140 is sometimes called the Hidden Nebula for the way it appears to be partially swallowed by the neighboring dark cloud LDN 1204, adjacent to the bright shock front of ionized gas. It glows about 3,000 light-years away in Cepheus. The imager took just over 12 hoursContinue reading "The Hidden Nebula’s glowing edge"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 9: Visualize the ecliptic Uranus reaches a stationary point at 2 P.M. EDT, coming to a halt amid the stars of Taurus the Bull. Rising around 10:40 P.M. local daylight time, the best time to view the ice giant is inContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, September 10: Uranus is stationary"

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When Edward Emerson Barnard peered through the 36-inch refractor at Lick Observatory on Sept. 9, 1892, and spotted Amalthea, it marked the first discovery of a moon of Jupiter in 280 years. Galileo had discovered the four largest jovian moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – in 1610. Though this fifth moon was closerContinue reading "Sept. 9, 1892: Edward Emerson Barnard sees Amalthea"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  September 8: The Moon joins Jupiter The waning Moon has moved from Cancer to Leo and is nearing the bright star Regulus, which marks the Lion’s heart. Our satellite will pass 0.6° south of Regulus at 4 P.M. EDT this afternoon.  AnContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, September 9: Visualize the ecliptic"

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