Oberlin College Observatory and Planetarium

10/14/2026

What a combination! Mars in front of the Beehive open cluster in Cancer, along with an aurora. Here in Ohio, we had clouds. This is from today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). Check out their website or page. It is always interesting.

09/24/2026

Very cool stuff from a great astronomy page.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18NEuYjPj6/

The Ghosts of Five Supernovas (APOD: 2026 Sep 24)
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter, Yann Sainty Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260924.html

Explanation: The ghosts of five supernovas haunt this extraordinary image. It was acquired at Oukaïmeden Observatory in Morocco with approximately 200 hours of observations and shows a large patch of the sky, equivalent to the area of one thousand full moons tiled together, in the constellation of Auriga (the charioteer). From left to right, the five supernova remnants visible across the field are G181.1+9.5, G182.4+4.3, G179.0+2.6, G180.0−1.7 (Sh2-240, the Spaghetti Nebula), and G178.2−4.2. They are highlighted in the annotated image, together with open cluster M37 and the Tadpole Nebula. As each explosion expanded into space, it created a growing shell of shocked gas and delicate filamentary structures shown in red (hydrogen) and blue (oxygen), respectively. These ancient stellar explosions happened independently; they are at various distances up to about several thousands of light-years away from Earth and have estimated ages up to tens of thousands of years old. Early humans may have witnessed them as bright new stars, fading over weeks or months.

https://app.astrobin.com/u/Sacrednight
https://app.astrobin.com/u/yann_sainty
https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sci/bio/cecilia.chirenti
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/
https://www.astro.umd.edu/people/cecilia-chirenti
https://cresst2.umd.edu/

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=260924

09/14/2026

A zoomed-in view of Venus today just before 4PM in full daylight. Venus is showing a 29% lit crescent phase, and is nearly at its maximum brightness. This was taken with a 500mm lens and is heavily cropped.

09/14/2026

This afternoon we are having a very clear, blue sky, and I was able to photograph Venus just a few degrees from the 3.5 day old waxing crescent Moon. Venus is at upper right, and is close to its maximum brightness. The really cool part was I was able to take two of my planetarium classes from Oberlin College out on our observing deck and show this to them using binoculars. Astronomy is cool.

09/08/2026

Early this morning, about 5:30, Jupiter appeared just below the waning crescent Moon. Later this afternoon, at around 2:52 PM, the Moon will occult (eclipse) Jupiter in the daytime sky. If the high clouds go away, you might spot the event in binoculars.

09/02/2026

Here is our public observing schedule for Fall semester. Hope to see you.

08/28/2026

The partial lunar eclipse, nearly total, reached its maximum around 12:20 AM this morning. Here it is from around that time.

08/27/2026

There will be a nearly total lunar eclipse tonight starting around 10:30 PM. Maximum eclipse is around 12:20 AM, and the Moon will look something like this photo from October of 2014. Take a selfie with the eclipsed Moon and share it here!

08/26/2026

Don't miss the almost-total lunar eclipse late Thursday night and early Friday morning. We will be open at 10PM.

05/18/2026

No, this is not part of the recent release of information about UFO's (UAP's?), but I'm sure that some folks might think that it's a flying saucer. It is actually M104, the "Sombrero" galaxy which I imaged last night using the Seestar. It's about 28 million light years away and is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy with a noticeable dust lane. Now, there may be intelligent life there, but I can't prove it.