Stunning spirals

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

On 23 July 1999, Space Shuttle Columbia launched its heaviest-ever payload: the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a new flagship telescope for NASA. It is the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, capable o

The world’s biggest digital camera telescope has started ...

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

1 NGC 6624 We’ll start with globular cluster NGC 6624 located in the northwest corner of the Teapot, 0.8° southeast of mag. +2.7 Kaus Media (Delta (δ) Sagittarii). Shining with an integrated magnitude

Stephenson 1 is a cluster that deserves to be better known. Delta (δ) Lyrae is a very wide (10-arcminute) and bright (mag. +4.3 and + 5.6) double star with a stunning colour contrast. It’s not a true