Soooo pretty!

Quoted: Thousands of sparkling young stars are nestled within the giant nebula NGC 3603, one of the most massive young star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Saw Comet McNaught from the top floor of our office today as it made its brief appearance over the Olympics. Quite impressive to be able to see it so well without the help of binoculars or a telescope -- wish I had one though, could have gotten an even closer look! Beautiful...

Quoted: Instructions for viewing the comet in the morning from Spaceweather.com:
1. At dawn, go outside and face east
2. Using binoculars, scan the horizon
3. The comet is located just south of due east

The first close-up views of the Mars landscape, including this fault in the Ius Chasma, can be found here.

Quoted: Saturn's faint new ring, marked with a "+", is probably made of dust blasted off of two of Saturn's moons by meteoroids (Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Had to share...

Starlight? Too bright
The pursuit of a dark sky takes stargazers ever farther from Puget Sound

Lovely written story about the planet debate (great walkoff)

redot

Quoted: A committee has proposed a new definition of the word “planet” that would expand at a stroke the family of planets from 9 to 12.

I'm currently writing about light pollution and astronomy... Check out these interactive maps via NOAA... Incredible.

Escape the urban glow... Star Party in Oak Harbor ... should be fun!