Astronomy Magazine: Space News, Observing, Planets, Galaxies

Picture of the Day

$Wide-field view of a rich starfield showing a bright, dense globular star cluster near the upper right and a complex blue nebula with dark dust lanes in the lower left. The globular cluster appears as a tight, glowing ball of countless tiny white stars fading smoothly into the surrounding field. The lower-left nebula is made of bright blue patches around a few standout stars, crossed by thick, irregular dark clouds that block the stars behind them, while the rest of the frame is sprinkled with stars of different brightness and color, including a few very bright stars with sharp diffraction spikes.$

A glob and a stellar nursery

Massimo Di Fusco, taken via Chilescope

NGC 6727 is a reflection nebula and star-forming region in Corona Australis, part of the larger Corona Australis Molecular Cloud. It is accompanied in this image by globular cluster NGC 6723, sometimes called the Chandelier Cluster. This wide-field portrait combines 54 minutes of RGB exposure with a 20-inch f/3.8 scope.