An Alaskan Aurora, from Tyler Nordgren

If you don't know who Tyler Nordgren is, then you should definitely check out his website. He's an astronomer and artist who's made some of the coolest space-themed artwork I've seen in recent years. Nordgren is up in Alaska right now, kicking off an aurora tour, and shared the above picture to his Facebook profile today. It's definitely a stunning picture of an aurora, with a beautiful mixing of color across the sky. 

Heavens Above a Mo'ai

Here's your awesome for the day! This picture is called "Orion Above Easter Island" and was taken by Yuri Beletsky on 5 October of this year. The image definitely makes me want to get my butt to Easter Island to see such a beautiful sight. 

Soponyai's "A Day in the Astro Camp"

"A Day in the Astro Camp" is a composite photograph taken by György Soponyai. This image is a composite of images taken over 33 hours and planned for over 2 years. This 360x180 photo appears to show a tiny planet, with a field and trees on its day side and the red streamers and lights of the local inhabitants partying on its night side. The image was taken at the annual Astro Camp of the Hungarian Astronomical Association, so those inhabitants are probably some space nerds in their own right. The little world presented in this image almost seems to be lofted over a sea of star trails. The arc of the orbit of the International Space Station adds the little off-set arc below the globe. You can find more info about this image at Soponyai's Flickr as well as on the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Cosmic Traveler: Photo by A. Garret Evans

Today's APOD is this beautiful composite image of the Milky Way, Saturn, and some of our closest stellar neighbors over a stargazer's head in Maine. Some detail has been added to show where constellations and Saturn are at. Just looking at this picture makes me want to get out and go stargazing as soon as I possibly can. The heavens above have so much to offer, for sights and for thoughts.

Here's some info on the picture from APOD: 

"What if you climbed up on a rock and discovered the Universe? You can. Although others have noted much of it before, you can locate for yourself stars, planets, and even the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. All you need is a dark clear sky -- the rock is optional. If you have a camera, you can further image faint nebulas, galaxies, and long filaments of interstellar dust. If you can process digital images, you can bring out faint features, highlight specific colors, and merge foreground and background images. In fact, an industrious astrophotographer has done all of these to create the presented picture. All of the component images were taken early last month on the same night within a few meters of each other. The picturesque setting was Sand Beach in Stonington, Maine, USA with the camera pointed south over Penobscot Bay."

Winners from the 2016 International Earth & Sky Photo Contest

Popping open Astronomy Picture of the Day on my laptop this morning revealed a fantastic image of the night's sky over Reine, Norway, with the yellowed lights of an island village tucked beneath glacially carved landforms while the night's sky above swirls, alight with the green ghostly glowing of the Aurora Borealis:

The photo, taken by Alex Conu, was the 1st prize winner in the 2016 International Earth & Sky Photo Contest. The theme for this year's contest was "Dark Skies Importance" and the photos were judged in many criteria under two main categories, showing the viewers of the images the beauty and glory of the night's sky, and also showing how terrible the light pollution problem has become (you may have heard of the recent study showing that at least 80% of all humans live under skies affected by light pollution).

If, like me, you love to see fantastically beautiful images of the night's sky, then definitely check out this video showing off several of the best photos from this year's contest:

Earth & Sky Photo Contest 2016 from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo.

The Milky Way Over Ural, Russia

This beautiful image shows a picture of the luminous efflorescence of the Milky Way galaxy overhead of the photographer (Sergey Makurin) while he stands with his flashlight amidst the Seven Strong Men rock formation (also known as the Manpupuner rock formations). Located in Ural, Russia, these seven gigantic stone pillars range from 32 to 40 meters in height, and provide for an impressive spectacle, made all the more fantastical by capturing the beauty of the heavens above along with them.

Our Moon and the Galilean Moons

The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) today is too darned good not to share. It's an image (credit: Phillip A Cruden) of our Moon along with more distant points of light from the Galilean Moons and Jupiter. Here's the image along with the text from APOD:

"Some of the Solar System's largest moons rose together on February 23. On that night, a twilight pairing of a waning gibbous Moon and Jupiter was captured in this sharp telescopic field of view. The composite of short and long exposures reveals the familiar face of our fair planet's own large natural satellite, along with a line up of the ruling gas giant's four Galilean moons. Left to right, the tiny pinpricks of light are Callisto, Io, Ganymede, [Jupiter], and Europa. Closer and brighter, our own natural satellite appears to loom large. But Callisto, Io, and Ganymede are actually larger than Earth's Moon, while water world Europa is only slightly smaller. In fact, of the Solar System's six largest planetary satellites, only Saturn's moon Titan is missing from the scene."

APOD: The Milky Way Over Uluru

This fantastic image popped up on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) earlier this week. The photo, captured by Babak Tafreshi, shows the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy rising above Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Northern Territory, Australia. Here is the text that was posted along with the image at APOD:

"The central regions of our Milky Way Galaxy rise above Uluru/Ayers Rock in this striking night skyscape. Recorded on July 13, a faint airglow along the horizon shows off central Australia's most recognizable landform in silhouette. Of course the Milky Way's own cosmic dust clouds appear in silhouette too, dark rifts along the galaxy's faint congeries of stars. Above the central bulge, rivers of cosmic dust converge on a bright yellowish supergiant star Antares. Left of Antares, wandering Saturn shines in the night."

APOD is a wonderful site where you can find some of the best astrophotography and astronomy-relevant images on the internet. I check it out every morning. Something about images of Uluru especially draw up thoughts of the mystic and merge beautifully with the background of the heavens at night. For instance, here is another APOD pic of Uluru taken by Vic and Jen Winter. It was posted back in 2002 and shows the annual Leonids Meteor Shower radiating from the heavens around Uluru.

I highly recommend checking out APOD on a regular basis for images like these and far more!