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Current asteroid count is 1,351,400
Observable comet count is 1122
Current exoplanet count is 5630
Current longitude II of the GRS is 53°
Today Monitor
Mars: January 16, 2025
Jupiter: December 7, 2024
Saturn: September 8, 2024
Uranus: November 17, 2024
Neptune: September 31, 2024
Evening: January 10, 2025 at 47.2°E
Morning: June 1, 2025 at 45.9°W
Evening: December 4,2023 at 21.3°E
Morning: January 12, 2024 at 23.5°W
Evening: March 24, 2024 at 18.7°E
Morning: May 9, 2024 at 26.4°W
Evening: July 22, 2024 at 26.9°E
Morning: September 5, 2024 at 18.1°W
Evening: November 16, 2024 at 22.5°E
Morning: December 25, 2024 at 22.0°W
Wednesday, September 18
Thursday, October 17
given for 00:00 UT
Date | Size | Age | Angle | Phase |
---|---|---|---|---|
14 Aug 2024 | 30.51' | 9.53 | -6.644° | |
15 Aug 2024 | 30.96' | 10.53 | -6.946° | |
16 Aug 2024 | 31.45' | 11.53 | -6.807° | |
27 Aug 2024 | 31.47' | 22.53 | 6.648° | |
28 Aug 2024 | 31.09' | 23.53 | 6.822° | |
29 Aug 2024 | 30.74' | 24.53 | 6.717° | |
11 Sep 2024 | 30.44' | 7.92 | -7.081° | |
12 Sep 2024 | 30.88' | 8.92 | -7.442° | |
13 Sep 2024 | 31.38' | 9.92 | -7.388° | |
14 Sep 2024 | 31.90' | 10.92 | -6.884° | |
23 Sep 2024 | 32.03' | 19.92 | 6.983° | |
24 Sep 2024 | 31.54' | 20.92 | 7.577° | |
25 Sep 2024 | 31.07' | 21.92 | 7.769° | |
26 Sep 2024 | 30.64' | 22.92 | 7.584° | |
27 Sep 2024 | 30.28' | 23.92 | 7.067° | |
09 Oct 2024 | 30.41' | 6.22 | -6.872° | |
10 Oct 2024 | 30.80' | 7.22 | -7.260° | |
11 Oct 2024 | 31.24' | 8.22 | -7.306° | |
12 Oct 2024 | 31.73' | 9.22 | -6.971° | |
21 Oct 2024 | 32.22' | 18.22 | 6.835° | |
22 Oct 2024 | 31.69' | 19.22 | 7.618° | |
23 Oct 2024 | 31.17' | 20.22 | 7.933° | |
24 Oct 2024 | 30.69' | 21.22 | 7.796° | |
25 Oct 2024 | 30.28' | 22.22 | 7.257° | |
08 Nov 2024 | 31.20' | 6.47 | -6.417° | |
19 Nov 2024 | 31.78' | 17.47 | 6.845° | |
20 Nov 2024 | 31.27' | 18.47 | 7.271° | |
21 Nov 2024 | 30.79' | 19.47 | 7.223° | |
22 Nov 2024 | 30.36' | 20.47 | 6.738° |
Date | Size | Age | Angle | Phase |
---|---|---|---|---|
11 May 2024 | 31.43' | 2.86 | -6.465° | |
12 May 2024 | 30.97' | 3.86 | -6.734° | |
13 May 2024 | 30.54' | 4.86 | -6.649° | |
26 May 2024 | 31.26' | 17.86 | 6.556° | |
27 May 2024 | 31.51' | 18.86 | 6.627° | |
08 Jun 2024 | 31.21' | 1.47 | -6.565° | |
09 Jun 2024 | 30.83' | 2.47 | -6.570° | |
22 Jun 2024 | 31.42' | 15.47 | 6.419° | |
23 Jun 2024 | 31.72' | 16.47 | 6.548° | |
05 Jul 2024 | 31.15' | 28.47 | -6.475° | |
06 Jul 2024 | 30.85' | 0.04 | -6.542° | |
20 Jul 2024 | 31.77' | 14.04 | 6.576° | |
01 Aug 2024 | 31.01' | 26.04 | -6.516° | |
02 Aug 2024 | 30.73' | 27.04 | -6.622° | |
16 Aug 2024 | 31.45' | 11.53 | 6.680° | |
17 Aug 2024 | 31.94' | 12.53 | 6.611° | |
28 Aug 2024 | 31.09' | 23.53 | -6.608° | |
29 Aug 2024 | 30.74' | 24.53 | -6.758° | |
30 Aug 2024 | 30.43' | 25.53 | -6.567° | |
12 Sep 2024 | 30.88' | 8.92 | 6.748° | |
13 Sep 2024 | 31.38' | 9.92 | 6.795° | |
14 Sep 2024 | 31.90' | 10.92 | 6.467° | |
24 Sep 2024 | 31.54' | 20.92 | -6.608° | |
25 Sep 2024 | 31.07' | 21.92 | -6.837° | |
26 Sep 2024 | 30.64' | 22.92 | -6.706° | |
09 Oct 2024 | 30.41' | 6.22 | 6.695° | |
10 Oct 2024 | 30.80' | 7.22 | 6.831° | |
11 Oct 2024 | 31.24' | 8.22 | 6.620° | |
21 Oct 2024 | 32.22' | 18.22 | -6.408° | |
22 Oct 2024 | 31.69' | 19.22 | -6.763° | |
23 Oct 2024 | 31.17' | 20.22 | -6.728° | |
05 Nov 2024 | 30.24' | 3.47 | 6.535° | |
06 Nov 2024 | 30.52' | 4.47 | 6.723° | |
07 Nov 2024 | 30.84' | 5.47 | 6.580° | |
18 Nov 2024 | 32.26' | 16.47 | -6.549° | |
19 Nov 2024 | 31.78' | 17.47 | -6.638° | |
03 Dec 2024 | 30.57' | 1.74 | 6.584° | |
04 Dec 2024 | 30.83' | 2.74 | 6.475° | |
16 Dec 2024 | 32.04' | 14.74 | -6.545° | |
30 Dec 2024 | 30.69' | 28.74 | 6.543° | |
31 Dec 2024 | 31.00' | 0.07 | 6.472° |
Source: NASA/GSFC
A man at image center with many green shrubs and trees in the background.
Source: Space Telescope Science Institute
In May, we are looking away from the crowded, dusty plane of our own galaxy toward a region where the sky is brimming with distant galaxies. Locate Virgo to find a concentration of roughly 2,000 galaxies and search for Coma Berenices to identify many more. Keep watching for space-based views of galaxies like the Sombrero Galaxy, M87, and M64.
Source: hubblesite.org
“Tonight’s Sky” is a monthly video of constellations you can observe in the night sky. The series is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope, in partnership with NASA’s Universe of Learning.
An international team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to find evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their massive black holes when the Universe was only 740 million years old. This marks the most distant detection of a black hole merger ever obtained and the first time that this phenomenon has been detected so early in the Universe.
Source: esawebb.org
1 May 2024
This new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features NGC 6440, a globular cluster that resides roughly 28 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. The object was first discovered by William Herschel in May of 1786. Globular clusters like NGC 6440 are roughly spherical, tightly packed, collections of old stars bound together by gravity. They can be found throughout galaxies, but often live on the outskirts. They hold hundreds of thousands to millions of stars that are on average about one light-year apart, but they can be as close together as the size of our Solar System. NGC 6440 is known to be a high-mass and metal-rich cluster that formed and is orbiting within the Galactic bulge, which is a dense, near-spherical region of old stars in the inner part of the Milky Way. This image was obtained with 2023 data from Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) …
Source: esawebb.org
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a triple-star star system.
Click to enlarge or show full screenFri, 17 May 2024 20:19 GMT
Source: www.nasa.gov
Image credit: NASA/JPL
2024-03-15 solar system
According to NASA, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass less than 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from Earth's surface, closer than the distance of geosynchronous satellites. Although previously dubbed the Doomsday Asteroid, about 340 meters wide Apophis does not pose any danger of impact during close approach in 2029 as it will be visible with the unaided eye. Link to source 🔗
Image credit: NASA/LRO/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution
2024-01-27 solar system
Moon is shrinking and torn by tidal forces from Earth. Evidence for seismic activity has been detected near candidate regions for the Artemis III mission scheduled for a crewed lunar landing. Such quakes can produce ground shaking strong enough for faults to slide or for piling up new thrust faults. The LROC image shows a cluster of lobate scarps (left pointing arrows) near the lunar south pole. A thrust fault scarp cut across an approximately 1-km diameter degraded crater (right pointing arrow). Link to source 🔗
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
2024-01-27 solar system
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the JAXA SLIM lander on the Moon’s surface on Jan. 24, 2024. SLIM landed at -13.316° south latitude, +25.2510° east longitude, at an elevation of minus 912 meters. The image is 880 meters wide and lunar north is up. Link to source 🔗
Image credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI), Ralf Crawford (STScI)
2024-01-26 Exoplanets
Discovered in 2017, the Superterran planet GJ 9827 d is located some 97 light-years away in Pisces and may have a water-rich atmosphere in spite of being hotter than Venus because it orbits extremely close to it host star alongside two further known inner planets. Astronomers will further investigate with the help of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. Link to source 🔗
Image credit: JAXA/タカラトミー/ソニーグループ(株)/ 同志社大学)
2024-01-25 solar system
JAXAs lunar lander SLIM has been photographed by its small rover, the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2). The soft landing about 55 meters east of target point was completed at 1.4m/sec surpassing specifications. Though the solar panels were supposed to face upwards after landing, on the photo SLIM is shown with its main engine facing upwards, but JAXA hopes it will gather sunlight and restore power until local sunset on Feb 1st. Analysis so far has also revealed that one of the two main engines was lost due to some abnormality at an altitude of 50 meters just before landing. Both exploration rover robots are in good working condition. SLIM landed on the moon at 15:20 on January 19 UTC. Link to source 🔗
Backlog
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If anybody is interested in the night life of bats, here is a funny 1-minute MP4 video (24MB).
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Constellation | Draco |
Distance | 95.20 parsec |
Magnitude | 9.02 vis. |
Spectral type | G V |
Mass | 1.1 xSun |
Radius | 1.05 xSun |
Temperature | 5800°K |
Known planet(s) | 1 |
Tsao Fu (21 Zet Cep) in Cep [HIP 109492]
Distance: 726 light-years, Magnitude: 3.39
Zeta Cephei is a giant class-K star, 8 times more massive and 110 times larger than the sun with a metallicity of 1.6 that of the sun. A possible companion is still unconfirmed. At the edge of the 8-to-10 solar mass limit at which stars develop iron cores and then explode as supernovae, its most likely fate is to produce a massive white dwarf. Zeta is 50 million years old.
Star Chart | DSS IR Image 🔗GJ 139 (82 G. Eridani) in Eridanus
Distance: 20 light-years, Magnitude: 4.2
82 G. Eridani is a sun-like star, 70% the mass and 92% the solar radius with a projected equatorial rotation rate of 4.0 km/s (twice that of the sun). The star is home to three known hot super-terran sized planets in near circular or circular orbits -- all orbiting between the habitable zone and the star.
Star Chart | DSS IR Image 🔗
M108 (Galaxy) in Ursa Major
Magnitude: 10.6
Running away from us at 772 km/s, this disturbed looking galaxy is rich in dark dust, star forming regions and a supershell.
Star Chart | DSS IR Image 🔗Cygnus (northern), area rank: 16
Delegating summer, Cygnus is also called the "Northern Cross", owing to its cross-like shape. At the tail of the "swan" shines the 1st-magnitude star Deneb. The binary star Albireo shines beautifully in yellow and blue at the nib. Cygnus is home to the majority of confirmed Kepler planets and the popular 'North America' nebula (NGC 7000).
Star Chart9P/Tempel 1
Discovered in 1867, short-periodic 9P/Tempel 1 has a 7.6 km wide nucleus and orbits the sun once in 5.52 years. Due to its current aphelion distance of 4.7 AU, comet Tempel's orbit changes under gravitaional pulls by Jupiter and the inner planets. The last major change occurred in 1881, when Jupiter stretched Tempel's period to 6.5 years. On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact probe deliberately dropped an impactor which left a 150 meters wide and 30 meters deep crater on Tempel's surface. On February 15, 2011, NASA's Stardust probe passed the comet at 181km distance and imaged the crater.
2003 DZ15 (NEO)
Semi-major: 1.22058 AU, Size: 0.152 km
2003 DZ15 is a 152 meters wide near-Earth asteroid which passed Earth on 30 July 2013 at 00:37 UT at a minimum distance of about 3.5 million km or 9 times the Earth-Moon distance. With a perihelion of 0.63 AUs and an aphelion of 1.815AUs, 2003 DZ15 can also make close passes by the planets Venus and Mars as well. The asteroid orbits the sun once in 1.35 years on a highly, near 0.5, eccentric orbit and is seven times the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia on February 15th., 2013. At closest approach, the asteroid reached only about +14th magnitude (based on an absolute magnitude of +22.2), and hence was out of range to most backyard telescopes.
Ganymede (moon of Jupiter)
Discovered in 1610 by G. Galileo, Ganymede is the third and largest of Jupiter's 'Galilean Satellites', and the largest known moon in the solar system with 0.413 Earth radii. Ganymede is composed of equal amounts of silicate rock and water ice under which a saltwater ocean is believed to exist about 200 km below. Its surface is composed of old impact craters and regions of grooves and ridges with tidally forced tectonic activity. Ganymede is the only moon known to have a magnetossphere. March 2015: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface. Hubble was used to watch aurorae glowing above the moon's icy surface. The aurorae are tied to the moon's magnetic field, which descends right down to the core of Ganymede. A saline ocean would influence the dynamics of the magnetic field as it interacts with Jupiter's own immense magnetic field, which engulfs Ganymede.
HD 18143 b (in Aries)
Mass: 0.034 xJup
SMA: 0.088 AU
Period: 10.2851 days
Distance: 22.5243 parsec
Category: Hot Neptunian
ESI: 0.218127
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