APOD-october 27th-The antennae galaxies in collision

This image is an image to two galacies colliding. Although they are colliding, they do not collide in the usual sense, that is, the stars don't come in contace with each other due to the large areas of empty space that galaxies are composed of. However, galaxies can rip each other apart gravitationally and the dust and gas in both galaxies do collide. These collisions cause the birth of literally thousands of stars, some of which are bound together as binary stars.

APOD:Friday the 20th

When we look at the shadow of Saturn, we are able to see many new things.. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own ring system. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the above image. Visible in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus, and the outermost ring visible above.

Observations as seen on Friday, October 13th

Tyler and I observed the sky for a couple of hours off the beach on Casey Key. The moon appeared to be in it's last quarter. To the North we where able to see what appeared to be Ursa Minor and Cepheus, and to the NW we where able to see Lyra. The sky was very clear that night and there was virtually no cloud cover.

A newly discovered comet has brightened enough to be visible this week with binoculars. The picturesque comet is already becoming a favored target for northern sky imagers. Pictured above just last week, Comet SWAN showed a bright blue-green coma and an impressive tail. Comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN) was discovered in June in public images from the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) instrument of NASA and ESA's Sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft.