This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus . Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331 . A mere 50 million light-years away, the large spiral is one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet . About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot. On the sky, the quintet and NGC 7331 are separated by about half a degree.

The sharpest image ever of Betelgeuse shows a mammoth star that is slowly evaporating. Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), also known as Alpha Orionis , is one of the largest and brightest stars known. The star is a familiar orange fixture easily visible to the unaided eye toward the constellation of Orion . The above recent image from the Very Large Telescope in Chile resolves not only the face of Betelgeuse, but a large and previously unknown plume of surrounding gas. This plume gives fresh indications of how the massive star is shedding mass as it nears the end of its life. Conversely, a series of previous observations indicate that the surface of Betelgeuse has noticeably shrunk, on the average, over the past decade. If Betelgeuse , a red supergiant star about 640 light years distant, were placed at the center of our Solar System, the plume would extend past the orbit of Jupiter. Since Betelgeuse is known to change its brightness irregularly , future observations may determine if changes its appearance irregularly as well. Betelgeuse is a candidate to undergo a spectacular supernova explosion almost anytime in the next few thousand years.

How can the same Sun rise three times? Last month on Friday, 2009 July 10, a spectacular triple sunrise was photographed at about 4:30 am over Gdansk Bay in Gdansk , Poland . Clearly, our Sun rises only once. Some optical effect is creating at least two mirages of the Sun -- but which effect? In the vast majority of similarly reported cases, mirages of the brightest object in the frame can be traced to reflections internal to the camera taking the images. Still, the above image is intriguing because a sincere photographer claims the effect was visible to the unaided eye , and because the photographer took several other frames that show variants of the same effect. Therefore, polite readers are invited to debate whether the above image captures a particularly spectacular example of common reflections inside a standard digital camera , shows one of the most spectacular examples of atmospheric lensing yet recorded, or was caused by something completely different . If the discussion converges, the consensus will be posted here at a later date.

What does a star look like when it is forming? The prototypical example is the variable star T Tauri , visible as the bright orange star near the image center. The orange star centered in this remarkable telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars. Surrounding T Tauri is a dusty yellow cosmic cloud named the Hind 's Variable Nebula (NGC 1555/1554). Over 400 light-years away, at the edge of a molecular cloud , both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young -- less than a few million years old -- sun-like stars still in the early stages of formation . To further complicate the picture, infrared observations indicate that T Tauri itself is part of a multiple star system. Surprisingly, due to a close gravitational pass near one of these stars, T Tauri may now be headed out of the system. The dramatic color image above captures a region that spans about 4 light-years .

When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 6559 . Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen , blue reflection nebulas of dust , dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode . The resulting morass can be as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars.

A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history, lit up planet Earth's sky in the year 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the stellar explosion, found in the southerly constellation of Lupus , still puts on a cosmic light show across the electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, this composite view includes X-ray data in blue from the Chandra Observatory , optical data in yellowish hues, and radio image data in red. Now known as the SN 1006 supernova remnant , the debris cloud appears to be about 60 light-years across and is understood to represent the remains of a white dwarf star. Part of a binary star system , the compact white dwarf gradually captured material from its companion star. The buildup in mass finally triggered a thermonuclear explosion that destroyed the dwarf star. Because the distance to the supernova remnant is about 7,000 light-years , that explosion actually happened 7,000 years before the light reached Earth in 1006. Shockwaves in the remnant accelerate particles to extreme energies and are thought to be a source of the mysterious cosmic rays .

This sprawling dark marking is Jupiter's latest impact scar, a debris plume created as a small asteroid or comet disintegrated after plunging into the gas giant's atmosphere. Located in Jupiter's south polar region, the new feature was discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley on July 19. On July 23rd Wesley's discovery was followed up by the Hubble Space Telescope with its newly installed Wide Field Camera 3, creating this sharpest view of the evolving debris plume. Estimates indicate that the impacting object itself was several hundred meters across. Similar impact markings were created when pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter's cloud bands in July of 1994.

The July 22nd total solar eclipse was the longest of the 21st century . From the point of maximum eclipse along the Moon's shadow track across the Pacific Ocean, the Moon completely blocked the Sun for a total of 6 minutes and 39 seconds. But from the deck of this cruise ship the duration of the total eclipse phase was extended to a whopping 6 minutes and 42 seconds by the ship's motion along the shadow track. This panoramic view of the scene shows the shimmering solar corona in a darkened daytime sky, with clouds silhouetted by a bright sky on the distant horizon, beyond the Moon's shadow . Mercury can be seen near the eclipsed Sun. Venus lies near the upper right edge of the frame.

Was Devil's Tower once an explosive volcano? Famous for its appearance in films such as Close Encounters , the origin of Devil's Tower in Wyoming , USA is still debated, with a leading hypothesis holding that it is a hardened lava plume that probably never reached the surface to become a volcano . The lighter rock that once surrounded the dense volcanic neck has now eroded away, leaving the dramatic tower. High above , the central band of the Milky Way galaxy arches across the sky. Many notable sky objects are visible , including dark strands of the Pipe Nebula and the reddish Lagoon Nebula to the tower's right. Green grass and trees line the foreground, while moon-illuminated clouds appear near the horizon to the tower 's left. Unlike many other international landmarks, mountaineers are permitted to climb Devil's Tower .

Few auroras show this level of detail. Above , a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta , Canada . With a shape reminiscent of a flower , the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail . The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons . Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.