Astroshots of the month

We start with open cluster IC 4756, right at the top of the tail, located 4.2° west and 0.9° north of mag. +5.6 Alya (Theta1 (θ1) Serpentis). It’s a large, bright object perfectly suited for a small t

Scientists working with the James Webb Space Telescope have likened this object to an ice cream sundae. Others examining it with the now-defunct Spitzer Space Telescope dubbed it the cosmic tornado. T

Andrea Arbizzi, Modena, Italy, December 2024–April 2025 Andrea says: “PuWe 1 is a tough, faint target and even more so from my Bortle 8 sky! But after 28 hours and some intensive processing, I was abl

Alessandro Scalas, Lofoten Islands, Norway, 12 February 2025 Alessandro says: “The sky was cloudy, but then it opened up and started to turn green, and I was amazed to see a moonbow reflecting the lig

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the lack of true darkness in the middle of the year doesn’t make astronomy that easy to do. The planets are good at cutting through slightly brighter skies,

Galaxies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be broadly classified as spiral, elliptical or irregular, but each of these still leaves plenty of scope for variety. Take, for instance, the s