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What's in the sky tonight?
June 20, 2013

-Look lower left of the Moon at dusk, by almost two fists at arm's lengths, for orange-red Antares. Between them is the three-star row of the Head of Scorpius, nearly vertical.

-This is Midsummer's Night, the shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The solstice is at 1:04 a.m. on the 21st EDT; 10:04 p.m. on the 20th PDT.

News Posted Today:
June 19, 2013
A Billion Pixels of Mars-scape


Astro Picture of the Day:
June 20, 2013

Source:
Sharp telescopic views of magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy. The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.