These stunning views of Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) were captured by its discoverer, Rob McNaught, from the Sliding Spring Observatory in Australia (roughly 400 km Northwest of Sydney). The images were taken on January 20th after sunset. The 90-second (top) and 50-second (bottom) exposures beautifully highlight the wispy remnants of the comet’s dust tail.

Observers in […]

No, not that kind.
The rest of the astronomical world is raving about Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1), but I’ve had to live vicariously through others for this one. A string of cloudy evenings has foiled my observing plans for the last several days, and just as the comet was reaching its visual peak for we Northern […]

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has posted a nifty new slideshow highlighting imagery returned by the Spitzer Space Telescope. This is my favorite of the batch; a composite view of M82 (a.k.a. The Cigar Galaxy) which combines observations from a trio of venerable orbital observatories: Hubble, Spitzer, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Image Credits: NASA, JPL-Caltech, STScI, […]

New imagery was released today by the Hubble Space Telescope showing Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3’s continuing disintegration. These spectacular views captured from orbit, without the burden of having to peer through our atmosphere, reveal some magnificent details previously unseen from ground-based instruments.

Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys image of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 fragment B on […]

Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT)

Image Credit: NASA, NOAO, NSF, T. Rector
(University of Alaska Anchorage),
Z. Levay and L.Frattare
(Space Telescope Science Institute)
The folks over at Space.com have added a spiffy new feature on comets as part of their Universal Sky Tour.
Check out the presentation:
Comets: Marvelous Messengers/Deliverers of Dread.