Photos - taken through telescopes, or with other optical aid - from the EarthSky community. The brightest planet Venus is now in a thin crescent phase as viewed from Earth. Venus will go between us and the sun on June 3.

NASA’s AIM spacecraft spotted wisps of the 2020 season's 1st noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds over the Arctic on May 17.

The young moon returned to the evening sky this weekend, to sweep past the bright planets Venus and Mercury.

Markarian's Chain forms part of the Virgo galaxy cluster. When viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. Armenian astronomer Benjamin Markarian discovered these galaxies' common motion in the early 1960s. American astronomer Fred Espenak captured this image.

Wow! Thanks, everybody, for the wonderful Venus and Mercury photos! These 2 worlds have been nearest each other this week for all of 2020. A selection of photos from our community here, and many more at EarthSky Community Photos.

Three crescents - Venus, the moon, the eclipsed sun - all at about the same phase.

Tropical Cyclone Amphan on May 19, 2020, on approach to eastern India and Bangladesh.

This was the last sunset - prior to several months of winter darkness - at Concordia Research Station in Antarctica. Scientists at the station are studying how living in extreme conditions affects the human body and mind.

It's what's called a reflection rainbow, which can be caused by sunlight beaming upward after reflecting from wet sand or calm water, in this case the water of Puget Sound.

A beautiful image of San Francisco Bay via ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.