pettengill | EarthSky

Three images of a full moon with different percentages of the moon darkened at the bottom.

The 1st eclipse season of 2025 starts this week

One of the many noticeable cycles in the heavens is an eclipse season. The 1st eclipse season of 2025 starts with a total lunar eclipse on March 13-14, 2025.

Large swirls of mixed red and blue gas with thin dark lanes and numerous foreground stars.

Deep-sky photos for December 2024: Editor’s picks

Enjoy this gallery of deep-sky photos for December 2024 from our EarthSky community. If you have a great photo to share, send it in. We love to see them!

Image shows the totally eclipsed sun centered on the page with the corona in a yellow hue glowing around the dark moon.

Total solar eclipse pics and video from the EarthSky community

Check out these wonderful total solar eclipse pics and video from our EarthSky community! See our editor's picks that capture the partial and total phases.

Separate red and yellow areas of wispy clouds on black background, with faint scattered stars.

Deep-sky photos for December 2023: Editor’s picks

Enjoy December 2023's gallery of editor's picks of deep-sky photos from our EarthSky community. If you have a photo to share, submit it to us!

Two bright stars, one large round star cluster, colorful wisps of gas clouds.

Rho Ophiuchi is filled with glorious color

One of the most colorful regions of the sky, Rho Ophiuchi showcases clusters and nebulae galore. This region is a great target for August nights.

Large, bright white full moon, with tiny red Mars next to it.

Moon and Mars! Fav photos of December 7 occultation

The moon and Mars were spectacular on the night of December 7-8, 2022. Some saw the moon occult - or pass in front of - Mars. Wonderful photos here!

Rock art of a sun, a hand, and a crescent.

Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and its astronomical rock art

Chaco Canyon aka Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, contains astronomical rock art that documents what the people of the time saw in the sky.

US intelligence report: 140 unexplained UFOs, no aliens

A newly released U.S. intelligence report cannot "confirm or deny" that the unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, sighted by Navy pilots are due to alien visitors.

It seems possible to detect a subtle shading on the moon in this photo taken midway through a partial penumbral eclipse, but, if so, it's very very subtle.

Eclipse? What eclipse?

Even experienced observers say they couldn't discern the Earth's shadow on the moon during the partial penumbral eclipse of July 4-5, 2020.

Awesome nightscape photos from New Mexico’s Very Large Array

Observatories are great places to view and photograph the night sky. Tips from an astrophotographer's trip to the Very Large Array in New Mexico - to help you plan your next astrophotography adventure - plus awesome photos.

Barren, rocky landscape with snow patches. Blue sky.

Astronomy ambassadors to Chile: ALMA radio telescope

Learn what it would be like to travel to Chile - sometimes called astronomy's world capital - in this final report from Robert Pettengill with the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program. Thank you for your dispatches, Rob!

Looking along a road toward a large telescope dome, with a second dome to the right.

Astronomy ambassadors in Chile: Cerro Pachón and Cerro Tololo

Robert Pettengill reports from the busy ACEAP (Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program) annual trip, happening now in Chile.

Radio dishes on a high plain in the Chilean Andes.

Astronomy educators to rendezvous in Chile

Members of the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program are heading to Chile for a tour of its great observatories, July 27 to August 5, 2019.

Mars closest to Earth on July 30-31

Closer than since 2003! Even closer now than when we passed between Mars and the sun last Friday. How that can happen, and the prospects for viewing Mars through a telescope now.

See it! Mars is very bright now

It's the brightest Mars has been in our sky since since 2003. Photos from the EarthSky community here.

Moon, Mercury, Venus June 14 to 16

On June 14, 15 and 16, 2018, the young moon swings by 2 planets - brilliant Venus and fainter Mercury - in the west after sunset. How to spot 'em, here.