The Leonids will be active the next couple weeks but are best before dawn on Nov. 17. The moon is up nearly the whole night, but there's a small window of darkness about half-hour to 45 minutes after moonset and before the start of dawn, when the sky will briefly turn dark. The meteors stream from a spot in Leo called the radiant. Contributed / Stellarium

Astro Bob 5:57 pm, Nov. 16, 2021

Astro Bob: Leonid meteor shower peaks, a shattered Russian satellite dumbfounds

The Leonid meteors peak Wednesday morning, Nov. 17. Meanwhile, after a Russian anti-satellite test, thousands of pieces of man-made space debris now litter low-Earth orbit.

Graham Wolf of Dunedin, New Zealand photographed the totally eclipsed moon on May 26, 2021. The upcoming November 19th eclipse will be just shy of total with 97 percent of the moon in shadow at mid-eclipse. Notice that during totality, stars are visible right up to the moon's edge. Contributed / Graham Wolf

Astro Bob 11:48 am, Nov. 14, 2021

Astro Bob: Watch a wonderful, near-total lunar eclipse

The moon will be in first quarter phase Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021, when it completes a quarter of its orbit around the Earth. At this time, we see half the lunar nearside in sunlight and half in darkness or night.
Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 2:49 pm, Nov. 11, 2021

Astro Bob: Hitch a ride with the moon, see the sights

This artist's illustration depicts a single extrasolar planet like HD 3167b orbiting in the equatorial plane of its host star. Contributed / NASA

Astro Bob 5:00 pm, Nov. 9, 2021

Astro Bob: Astronomers find solar system with right-angled planets

Orion's three belt-stars are so distinctive nearly everyone recognizes the constellation. A rectangular box of bright stars that forms the hunter's outline frames the trio. Losing Daylight Saving Time means Orion rises an hour earlier. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 3:26 pm, Nov. 7, 2021

Astro Bob: Set your clocks to Orion Saving Time

After the aurora, many of us awoke Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, to frost-covered lawns. I deliberately threw this image out of focus to better see the intense colors in the grass from sunlight refracted by billions of minute ice crystals.
Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 1:26 pm, Nov. 4, 2021

Astro Bob: From auroras to prismatic grass, light touches us all

Watch for the waning crescent moon to shine just a few degrees above the planet Mercury on Wednesday, Nov. 3 at dawn. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 1:56 pm, Nov. 2, 2021

Astro Bob: Keep your eye on the crescent moon

A massive aurora blooms across northwestern sky during a strong storm in May 2016. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 2:16 pm, Oct. 31, 2021

Astro Bob: Trick-or-treat! Why the northern lights sometimes fizzle

Ceres crosses the Hyades cluster now through late November. This map marks the dwarf planet's position every 5 days from Oct. 28 - Nov. 26. For other times, just interpolate between the dates shown. Stars are plotted to magnitude 8, with the time set to 10:30 p.m. CDT. No worries if you're looking a few hours one way or the other because Ceres moves relatively slowly across the sky. Contributed / Stellarium with additions by Bob King

Astro Bob 2:13 pm, Oct. 28, 2021

Astro Bob: Biggest asteroid Ceres buzzes the Hyades

This artist's illustration depicts the X-ray binary star and possible planet (black disc) in the Whirlpool Galaxy. Material from the companion star, at right, is pulled onto the neutron star or black hole, forming a dense disk around the object. The material closest to the object becomes superheated, causing it to glow in X-ray light (white). The planet is shown beginning to pass in front of this source of X-rays.
Contributed / NASA, CXC, M. Weiss

Astro Bob 4:26 pm, Oct. 26, 2021

Astro Bob: Astronomers find possible planet in Whirlpool Galaxy

Mercury appears low in the east-southeastern sky around 6:35 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 23. The planet will be easy to spot an hour or more before sunrise through early November. The star Gamma Virginis in Virgo appears directly above the planet.
Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 11:53 am, Oct. 24, 2021

Astro Bob: Mercury puts on best morning show of the year

This rendering shows the Shenzou spacecraft (bottom) docked to the core module of China's Tiangong space station. The Shenzou capsule ferried three "taikonauts" to the station Friday, Oct. 15, 2021, for a six-month mission.
Contributed / Shujianyang, CC BY-SA 4.0

Astro Bob 1:29 pm, Oct. 21, 2021

Astro Bob: How to see the Chinese space station and a 'secret' U.S. space plane

Watch for the Full Hunter's Moon to light up the sky on Wednesday night, October 20. The moon will appear nearly as full on Tuesday the 19th. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 4:36 pm, Oct. 19, 2021

Astro Bob: Read by the light of the Hunter's Moon

In this wide-angle view taken Sunday morning, October 17, the aurora (bottom) and early dawn light (right) pair up along the horizon. The Milky Way appears at far left. You might be able to make out the Big Dipper (above center) standing on its handle. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 2:33 pm, Oct. 17, 2021

Astro Bob: Aurora meets aurora, goddess of dawn

The moon passes near Jupiter Friday night, Oct. 15, and points to bright Formalhaut in the constellation of the Southern Fish. Contributed / Stellarium

Astro Bob 3:59 pm, Oct. 15, 2021

Astro Bob: Friday night fish fry with Piscis Austrinus

This map features Pegasus the Flying Horse and the bright star pattern called the Great Square. Both are well placed high in the southeastern sky as soon as it gets dark this month. Contributed / Stellarium

Astro Bob 4:56 pm, Oct. 13, 2021

Astro Bob: Get square with Pegasus

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded this coronal mass ejection (CME) in the wake of the M-class flare around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, October 9. Because the material was launched straight toward the Earth it forms an expanding halo around the sun. Contributed/ NASA, ESA

Astro Bob 4:13 pm, Oct. 10, 2021

Astro Bob: There will be no aurora Sunday night

Three views of the rotating Earth photographed by NASA's DSCOVR satellite on October 3, 2021, show the seven continents. Clouds and water make the planet shine, but a decrease in cloud cover due to changes in Pacific climate have caused our planet to fade in recent years. Images are artificially dimmed for illustration purposes. Contributed / NASA

Astro Bob 3:27 pm, Oct. 7, 2021

Astro Bob: Earth is fading — Is climate change to blame?

Is it a cross or a swan? Both! Cygnus is one of the easiest fall constellations to spot. It stands nearly overhead as soon as it gets dark out. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 5:39 pm, Oct. 5, 2021

Astro Bob: Meet Cygnus, the cross that would be a swan

NASA"s Mars Curiosity rover took this photo of the Earth at dusk on Mars on January 31, 2014. The pale blue planet shines nearly as bright as Sirius in the Martian sky. Contributed / NASA, JPL-Caltech

Astro Bob 4:38 pm, Oct. 3, 2021

Astro Bob: Where on Mars is Earth?

This illustration shows the Lucy spacecraft making a flyby of one of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. Contributed / Southwest Research Institute

Astro Bob 1:09 pm, Oct. 1, 2021

Astro Bob: Lucy mission will visit Jupiter's twin asteroid camps

The Seven Sisters star cluster rises in the northeastern sky, nudging above the trees around 9:30 p.m. local daylight time in late September. Resembling a tiny dipper, it's one of the brightest clusters in the sky. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 12:55 pm, Sep. 29, 2021

Astro Bob: Come and greet the Pleiades

An off-center coronal mass ejection (CME) on Sept. 23, paired with a high-speed solar wind from an opening in the sun's atmosphere called a coronal hole, will arrive at the Earth this evening and possibly spark the northern lights. The orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) used a special mask to block the sun, center, to photograph the CME.
Contributed / NASA, ESA, SOHO

Astro Bob 11:36 am, Sep. 26, 2021

Astro Bob: Aurora alert Sunday night

Brazilian amateur José Luis Pereira captured this photo of the Jupiter impact with his 10.8-inch (275-mm) reflecting telescope and video camera on Monday evening (local time), Sept. 13. The inset at upper left is an enlargement of the flash. North is up in this photo, and the shadow of the moon Io is seen at right.
Contributed / José Luis Pereira of Brazil

Astro Bob 2:30 pm, Sep. 23, 2021

Astro Bob: Jupiter impact discovery proves amateurs have what it takes

Fall's lessening daylight stimulates trees to break down the green chlorophyll in their leaves, exposing orange pigments called carotinoids that have been there all along. A different pigment, anthrocyanin, colors these red maple leaves a brilliant shade of scarlet. Scientists aren't sure why trees produce the pigment in fall, but it may serve as an antioxidant, a bird attractor to help in the dispersal of seeds or simply to warm the leaf to protect it from the cold. Contributed / Bob King

Astro Bob 3:57 pm, Sep. 21, 2021

Astro Bob: Embrace the Equinox

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