Info from NASA on July 14, 2020: Observers in the Northern Hemisphere are hoping to catch a glimpse of Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) as it zips through the inner solar system before it speeds away into the depths of space. [Editor’s note: many already have!] Discovered on March 27, 2020 by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field…
Tag: sky
What’s So Super About a Supermoon?
You’ve probably heard the news or read the headlines: the full Moon on November 14 will be a “supermoon,” and in fact the biggest and brightest one since 1948 and until 2034. But what does that really mean and what can we expect to see in the night sky? In all honesty it won’t be…
A New Look at Pluto: Hey There Mister Blue, We’re So Pleased to Be With You…
Not unlike what’s found here on Earth, the faraway dwarf planet* Pluto has a sky tinted blue with scattered sunlight, as seen in the latest image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft!
Mars Will NOT Be As Big As The Moon In The Night Sky
No, no, no…a thousand times NO: Mars will not become a “second Moon” in the sky on August 27. It won’t this year, it didn’t last year, and it didn’t in the past dozen years since this silly yet strangely perennial cyber-legend (yes I just used the prefix “cyber”) first started circulating on teh interwebz. I don’t know…
Three Worlds, One Shot: a February 2015 Conjunction Event
Did you have clear skies last night? If so, you may have been able to catch the sight above: a conjunction of the crescent Moon and the planets Venus and Mars in the western sky! I captured the photo above with a Nikon D7000 and a Sigma 150-500mm lens. Venus is the brighter object at…
Daytime Moon, Hello Venus!
What a weekend for sky gazing! As promised in Friday’s article on Universe Today, Venus was visible during the daylight hours this Saturday, very close to the crescent Moon. If you had clear weather you too may have been able to catch a glimpse of the scene above, photographed from my location in north Texas at…
Monday Night Lights: October Aurorae Surprise Skywatchers
Powerful geomagnetic activity created colorful aurorae that delighted skywatchers around the world on the night of Monday, October 24. The photo above was taken by LITD fan Bob Trembley from his location in Chesterfield, Michigan with his Canon EOS Rebel XS. “I can NOT believe I got these shots!” Bob writes on his Facebook page….
High Above Hawaii
For a real weekend treat, check out this beautiful time-lapse video taken by a camera mounted on a catwalk on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea in – you guessed it – Hawaii. 🙂 (If you don’t see a video above, click here to watch on YouTube.) Wow…absolutely beautiful! Especially considering no fancy editing…
Thin Blue Line
The setting sun lights up the the neon blue line of Earth’s atmosphere in this photo taken by the crew of the International Space Station during the STS-129 shuttle mission. Click for the full-size view. The darkness of space above and a dark night on Earth below, this “thin blue line” is all that exists…
News Post: Fire in the Sky
Video of a fiery chunk of material falling to Earth was captured Sunday, February 15th in Austin, TX during local Channel 8 news coverage of the Austin Marathon. While some initially thought it may be debris from the recent collision of a U.S. and Russian satellite, the FAA is saying it was in fact a…
Lights in the Dark 