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An artist's illustration of two astronauts in white spacesuits working on the gray lunar surface beside a large cylindrical mobile habitat on wheels, with a smaller open surface vehicle to the right and equipment cases scattered between them, set against a black sky.

Human Spaceflight

How NASA plans to build a Moon Base

Astrophotography

Astronomy magazine launches 2026 astrophotography contest presented by Celestron

My first image of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) was effectively zoomed in so far that the object looked nothing like a lagoon. It was taken with a Nikon D3100 on my Celestron 8-inch SCT, with an exposure time of 30 seconds at ISO 3200.

Astrophotography, Observing Basics

How to choose the right focal length for your astrophotos

A screenshot of the July 2026 issue landing page. The hero image features a bright deep-space scene with a glowing blue core of a nebula, wrapped in thick, textured clouds of amber and brown gas and dust. Sharp white stars fill the outer regions of the frame, with a few brighter stars showing cross-shaped spikes.

How to read the July digital issue of Astronomy magazine

Picture of the Day

Tall white sea cliffs drop into dark, blurred water at night, with and rolling grassy hills fading into the distance on the left. Above, a dense arch of the Milky Way stretches above a colorful sky on the horizon — cool blue and teal on the left, with orange light pollution at right. The Milky Way forms bright white star clouds set against a darker sky above packed with sharp stars.

Milky Way over Beachy Head

Marco Wong, taken from Sussex, U.K.

The Milky Way’s bright star fields and dense dust lanes arch above the chalk cliffs of Beachy Head and the English Channel in this wide-field nightscape. The photographer used a Canon DSLR and a 28mm f/1.4 lens to take a tracked vertical panorama of five panels of stacked sky exposures totaling over 24 minutes, roughly half of which was taken with an Hα filter. The foreground comprises a separate five-panel panorama taken with a 14mm f/2.8 lens; this was blended with the sky for the final image.

In the Sky

A simulated dawn sky looking east on June 5, 2026, 30 minutes before sunrise. Mars is visible as a small dot in the lower center against the orange-glowing predawn horizon, while Saturn appears higher and to the upper right, labeled clearly against the darker upper sky.

The Sky Today on Friday, June 5: Check in on Mars

What’s Launching This Week

What’s Launching This Week

SpaceX, China set for busy launch week

Today in the History of Astronomy

A black-and-white engraved portrait shows a balding man with a full, bushy beard and mustache, turned slightly to the right. He wears a dark suit jacket and vest over a white collared shirt and a dark bowtie. The detailed sketching sits against a stark white background that fades out softly at the bottom edge of the frame.

Today in the History of Astronomy

June 5, 1819: The birth of John C. Adams

More News

A twilight photograph taken over a calm body of water, with a vivid orange and red sunset glow along the horizon. The silhouettes of hills and a prominent volcanic peak stretch across the skyline. Jupiter and Venus appear as two bright points of light close together in the deep blue upper sky above the scene.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from June 5 to 12: Jupiter and Venus meet

$A curved, icy surface stretches across the lower portion of the frame, with multiple bright jets of vapor and particles erupting upward into a black sky from the moon's fractured southern terrain.$

Scientists used a method from ecology to identify whether icy moons could hold conditions for life

No matter how many Full Moons appear in any given timespan, its color will not actually change to blue. Credit: John Chumack.

Observing, The Moon

What is a Blue Moon? When’s the next one?

Could aliens ever visit Earth?

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