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Bsuobservatory - Blog Posts
We'll be open tonight, Wed. 4/30, 8:30 - 9:45 pm!
We'll be open tonight, Wed. 4/23, 8:30 - 9:45 pm! We expect lovely skies.
Wed. 4/16: We'll be open from 8:30 - 9:45 tonight!
The Fireworks Galaxy. Imaged at Bridgewater State University Observatory, Fall 2019. Reprocessed 2025. Credit: BSU Experimental Astrophysics Research (BEAR) Team.
We had an error on here earlier - fixed now.
Public nights are here!
4/2/25: We'll be closed tonight due to clouds and rain. We'll try again next week.
3/26: Public night is cancelled tonight due to clouds. We'll try again next week.
3/19/25: So far it looks likely to cloud up, but we'll wait a few more hours before deciding whether to hold our public night.
Article of the Day!
“Dust in the Stellar Wind: A Cosmological Primer” by Pat Brennan
A reminder that our public Spring events start this week!
Public nights are here!
Picture of the Day!
The Pencil Nebula, 800 light-years away and nearly 5 light-years long, is a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. This supernova shock wave travels through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour!
Image credit: Helge Buesing
Article of the Day!
"Gamma-ray Bursts: Harvesting Knowledge From the Universe’s Most Powerful Explosions" by Jenna Ahart
Picture of the Day!
This image is composed of consecutive shots taken near Llers in Spain’s Girona province, showing Comet Pons-Brooks. After passing closest to the Sun, it is now fading as it moves into the southern skies toward the outer Solar System.
Image credit: Juan Carlos Casado
Video of the Day!
Hubble has discovered that Jupiter’s red spot - a storm larger than Earth - is wobbling!
Article of the Day!
"What is Dark Energy? Inside our accelerating, expanding Universe" by Chelsea Gohd
Picture of the Day!
NGC 6188 Nebula is also known as the Firebird Nebula. It is an emission nebula located near the edge of a vast, dark molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, approximately 4,000 light-years from Earth.
Video of the Day!
NASA’s next mission to the Moon will carry LEXI (the Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager), an instrument which will provide the first-ever global view of the magnetic field that shields Earth from solar radiation!
Article of the Day!
"How Gravity Warps Light" from NASA Universe Web Team
Picture of the Day!
Also referred to as Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest major neighbor to the Milky Way. It is roughly twice the size of our galaxy and lies approximately 2.5 million light-years away.
Video of the Day!
An artist’s rendering shows us what happens when a star gets a little too close to a massive black hole!
Picture of the Day!
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the iconic Pillars of Creation, a region where new stars are being born within thick clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars resemble towering rock formations, yet they are much more porous. Composed of cool interstellar gas and dust, they sometimes appear semi-transparent in near-infrared light.
Video of the Day!
NASA's Parker Solar Probe broke a record! It got within 3.8 million miles of the Sun's surface - closer than any human-made object before! Not only that, it's the fastest human-made object, reaching a speed of about 435,000 mph.
Astronomy Word of the Day
The Magellanic Clouds are two small, irregular dwarf galaxies outside of the Milky Way. These two galaxies are visible in the skies of the southern hemisphere, close to the South Celestial Pole, so they don't appear to set!
Image: https://aaa.org/.../01/southern-skies-the-magellanic-clouds/
Wed. 11/13: We expect gorgeous, clear skies tonight! We'll be open, 6 -7 for public night and from 7 - 9 for attendees of Open Lab Night.
Please be aware the elevator which goes to the 5th floor (observatory) is out of order. We will only be accessible by stairs tonight, though you can still take the other elevator to the 4th floor.
Happy fun fact Friday!
Did you know that the largest canyon system in the solar system is Valles Marineris on Mars? The image shows the Valles Marineris compared to the US coast to coast and the Grand Canyon!
Source: NASA
Wed. 11/6: We'll be closed tonight - we expect lots of clouds rolling in after sunset. We'll try again next week!
Today's word of the day is "earthshine" which is when the Earth reflects the Sun's light so that it makes the dark side of the moon glow! Super cool.
Image credit: Abhijit Juvekar
Dragons fighting in space?
Just kidding. These "dragons" are made up of gas and dust in the emission nebula NGC 6188, which is 4000 lightyears away in the Ara constellation!
Image by: Carlos Taylor
Wed. Oct. 22: We'll be open tonight from 7 - 8 pm. We expect some clouds, but we should still be able to catch some nice glimpses of the sky. Saturn is still the star of the show!