These days you can get organised trips to Iceland and Tromsø in northern Norway to see the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28astronomy%29, http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en...w=1024&bih=545.

Yup, and Greenland. Would be awesome.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is Eric Hines' magnificent picture of the Milky Way (=centre of our galaxy) here http://travel.aol.co.uk/2011/06/30/p...the-milky-way/. That picture was taken at the Devil's Tower in Wyoming (an ex core of a volcano) which was made famous in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

And now, to brighten your day, here's a picture from Mars: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...QEwBg&dur=3288

Rather appropriately, it's season's greetings to Earth from the rest of the galaxy with a display from the Christmas Wreath Nebula:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ears-away.html

...bit it's not taken from Earth http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/5...43_946-710.jpg

Video here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/video...ia_id=41766461

In this case, it's Mars' largest moon, Phobos (Denderon) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_%28moon%29 blocking out part of the Sun and the pics were taken by the Opportunity rover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_rover.

...in the form of Kemble's Cascade which is a line of stars that can be seen right now in the night sky in the constellation of Camelopardalis:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100128.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk7h

Nice, huh?

...are now in and the photographs of the winners and runners up can now be viewed right here: http://www.rmg.co.uk/visit/exhibitio...r-of-the-year/ (some of the photos are very good indeed)

Today's APOD is possibly the weirdest thing I have ever seen on there. It it wasn't from such a respected source I'd say it was never real! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130306.html

That's amazing & so strange!

Certainly not one I have come across before.

...and today's picture is the NGC 2170 Dust Tail nebula: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

I found this picture by accident this evening of the Loon Island Lighthouse on Lake Sunapee (an inland lake!), New Hampshire, USA taken by A. Garrett Evans on 28 February this year:

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/046/...jpg?1426557760

Not really astronomy, but i took this a while back with my camera, nothing special, but i like it.
PHOTO

Fantastic detail there. Can I ask what camera and lens you use?

Yes APOD is a great resource.

Actually, nothing expensive, just my fuji HS20 bridge camera, with its built in lens.

Theres a bit of banding on the edges which is apparently common on "cheaper" cameras, but i like it, its fully customisation just like my girlfriends SLR, but it has an equivalent lens of 720mm, so is good for moon shots.

Yes, Gordie1's picture of the Moon was indeed very good.

And now for another Astronomy Picture of the Day nomination from me and it's the great M33 Triangulum Galaxy which is nearby at 3 million light years' distance. It's not as often featured as the Andromeda Galaxy, which is unfortunate, but the Triangulum Galaxy can be seen face on so much more detail and structure can be seen such as star forming clouds, etc.

Link: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1212...Gendler-LL.jpg

This thread reminded me of one of my favourite films, Another Earth, but in particular the opening scene:

http://youtu.be/ZaXANaRpmFg

It is beautiful.

Today's pictures are of the Pleiades star cluster visible in the northern hemisphere...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1011...y_JOhn600h.jpg
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130918.html

...and the Southern Pleiades star cluster visible in the souther hemisphere:

http://www.southernskyphoto.com/sout...es_ic_2602.jpg

There are some interesting features in that image, especially the nebulae towards the bottom. It shows a great variety of objects.

Lovely picture of LBN 777 in there as well. People say it looks like a bird, but I always think it looks like a mouse

http://www.astroeder.com/images/lbn777_eder1024.jpg

I went to Tenerife a few years back, its great for dark skies, you go up to the crater of a volcano, and you can actually see the colours in the orion nebula, amazing.

I also got a few photos from the desert in egypt, but being a novice i couldnt figure how to focus, and you cant always tell if you are looking at stars or noise, i need some software that would merge all my photos together, to give one clean image.

Anyway, i recommend tenerife for viewing and photos.

There are plenty of dark skies enterprises springing up in places as diverse as Namibia and New Mexico to offer gloriously clear and dark night skies to astronomers as this photo from Silver City, NM, USA shows: http://silvercitytourism.org/wp-cont...8/milkyway.jpg

Today's APOD is star formation in the Tadpole Nebula IC 410 in the constellation of Auriga: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1411...nucci_1824.jpg

I have always wondered about the colours of stars. I am red/green/brown colour blind but more importantly I can't detect colours in small amounts. So when people on "The Stars At Night" talk about the red giants and the blue stars I have no experience of these in the sky.

What I'd suggest doing is getting a pair of binoculars and an astronomy book and looking to see if you can differentiate between the various star colours as set out in the book. Good luck!

This is what a normal spiral galaxy looks like: http://www.cosmotography.com/images/...m51_sn2011.jpg (It's the M51 Whirlpool Galaxy which is about 23 million light years away)

We can only see our own Milky Way Galaxy from the inside but various measurements of different types has shown that our galaxy is not like stereotypical galaxy such the one above. The Milky Way Galaxy is, in fact, a barred spiral galaxy (see http://goo.gl/xikxy) with a central bar structure so today's APOD is a picture of a galaxy that looks just like our own one would if we could see it from a distance:

The M109 Barred Spiral Galaxy (about 84 million light years away)