The World at Night - TWAN

01/11/2026

© Stephane Vetter, twanight.org/vetter

Night on a Spooky Planet (APOD: 2026 Oct 31)
Image Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)
https://science.nasa.gov/apod/?date=261031

Explanation: What spooky planet is this? Planet Earth on a dark and stormy night, of course. The ghostly scene was photographed at Hverir, a geothermally active area found along northeastern Iceland's volcanic landscape. Triggered by solar activity, geomagnetic storms have unleashed energetic particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field. Penetrating the planet's upper atmosphere at high latitudes, the particles create auroral displays in the starry night sky. Ghostly towers of steam and gas are venting from local fumaroles to dance against the eerie, greenish northern lights. For now, auroral activity on planet Earth remains in a high state as the Sun is only in early phases of decline from the peak of its solar activity cycle. And soon, other ghostly apparitions may dance in your neighborhood. Happy Halloween!

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Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=261031

29/10/2026

🌌 Night sky above tomb of the king of liberty
© Babak Tafreshi, twanight.org/tafreshi

📷 1: In the early morning dazzling planet Venus rises along with the zodiacal light (or the false dawn as known in the Persian literature) and the crescent Moon just at the horizon). The foreground is the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae; a 2500-year old in southern Iran. Pasargadae was the first capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the capital of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) and also his last resting place. At the height of its power, the Achaemenid Empire encompassed spanned three continents, as far west as Libya to nearly all Middle East, and to Central Asia. Cyrus left an everlasting legacy on leadership as he respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered. He attributed his success to "Diversity in counsel, unity in command.

📷 2: The Milky Way and the majestic planet Jupiter shine above the tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae.
Date: 2009, Aug 01

📷 3: In the morning twilight the crescent Moon rises above the tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae. Note the surprising appearance of M44 or Beehive star cluster at the image’s upper edge, while in a close conjunction with the Moon.
Date: 2009, Aug 01

📷 4: Cyrus Cylinder is a Babylonian clay document of the 6th century BC, in the name of the Achaemenid Persian king Cyrus the Great (600-530 BC), photographed in the British Museum in London. It is considered the "first declaration of human rights". At the height of its power, the Achaemenid Empire encompassed spanned three continents, as far west as Libya to nearly all Middle East, and to Central Asia. Cyrus left an everlasting legacy on leadership as he respected the local people and their freedom, and the customs and religions of every lands he conquered.

📷 5: The four-winged guardian figure representing Cyrus the Great, a bas-relief in Pasargadae, a World Heritage Site near Shiraz, Iran.
Pasargadae was the first capital of the Achaemenids (the first Persian Empire), the capital of Cyrus (600-530 BC) and also his last resting place. At the height of its power, Achaemenid territory spanned three continents, from North Africa to parts of Europe, almost the entire Middle East, and to Central Asia.

21/10/2026

From Yuri Beletsky, twanight.org/beletsky :
Look at this incredibly intense airglow I recently captured at Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. You can see these vast red and green bands spanning across the sky from Orion all the way to the Southern Cross and Centaurus. We don’t get to see aurora here in the desert, but airglow still puts on quite a show for us at times. Taken as a single frame on a Sony a7IV and AstrHori Lenses 6/2.8 lens. Has anyone else caught something like this from where you are?

07/10/2026

From Babak Tafreshi, twanight.org/tafreshi : Early this morning I photographed a celestial spectacle right in my backyard, near Boston. Hidden behind the moon for an hour, Jupiter reappeared from the dark night side of the moon, like a sparkling diamond. The rare phenomena is called occultation.
Slide 1: timelapse videos of the scene through a 600mm telephoto lens (cropped). Note the four lined up Galilean Moons of Jupiter.
2: Moon is departing away from the alignment in twilight.
3: An HDR image (3 exposures) to reveal the lunar details in both its bright dayside and the faint earthshine glow on the night side of the moon.
4: A longer 30-second exposure on a star tracker has overexposed the moon to reveal the background starry sky.

05/10/2026

📷: Crux Aurora
© Max Inwood, twanight.org/guest
From the photographer: “Following several solar flares and Earth-facing CMEs, the Southern Lights were back on full display in early October.
While clouds unfortunately covered up the brightest auroras, I managed to catch this image just before dawn on the previous night – right as the aurora was first starting to kick off.”
Date: 2024, Oct 11
Location: New Zealand, Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park

26/09/2026

📷: Mirrored Meteor and Milky Way
© Jeff Dai, twanight.org/dai

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) in NASA on September 26, 2026.
Explanation: On August 15, this perseid meteor streaked through night skies over the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. The bright and colorful meteor trail was captured next to the central Milky Way, whose dark interstellar dust clouds and luminous starlight reach above the horizon. In the foreground of this tantalizing celestial scene is the 23 meter diameter mirror of the prototype Large-Sized Telescope (LST-1). LST-1 is the first telescope constructed at the northern hemisphere site of the innovative Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory. With 198 hexagonal mirror segments and a large, high-efficiency, pixelized camera, LST-1 is designed to detect extremely brief, atmospheric visible light flashes. Lasting about a billionth of a second, the visible light flashes are triggered by energetic gamma-rays from cosmic sources such as distant active galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. Of course, on that night some individual mirror segments of LST-1 also reflected the atmospheric flash of the bright perseid meteor.

19/09/2026

📷: A Zodiacal Night
© Neelam and Ajay Talwar, twanight.org/talwar
Astronomy Picture of the Day in NASA on September 19, 2026.

Explanation: Also known as the false dawn, a luminous band of zodiacal light is captured in this dark night skyscape. The serene view was recorded just before the beginning of astronomical twilight during September's star party at the remote Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, Ladakh, India, planet Earth. At about 4,500 meters altitude, the dark sky reserve presents a haven for hardy stargazing and astrophotography enthusiasts. While meteors streak through the night, bright planet Jupiter appears immersed in the faint zodiacal glow near the eastern horizon. Follow the zodiacal band toward the zenith to find open star cluster M44 and a yellowish tinged planet Mars near the center of the frame. In fact, serendipitous detections of interplanetary dust by NASA's Juno spacecraft suggest Mars itself is the source of dust that back scatters sunlight and creates zodiacal light in planet Earth's night.

11/09/2026

From Jeff Dai, twanight.org/dai
Pre-dawn starry sky and sea of clouds over Fanjing Mountain, featuring Jupiter and Moon conjunction. Love the sky’s gradient tones.

09/09/2026

✨️Moon and Pleiades
© Laurent Laveder, twanight.org/laveder
Time-lapse AVI video of conjunction of the crescent Moon and Pleiades or the seven sisters star cluster in early morning sky.

28/08/2026

What happens when Earth gets between the Sun and the Moon? 🌕
On August 28, 2026, the Full Moon passed through Earth’s shadow in a deep partial . At maximum eclipse, 96.3% of the Moon’s disk was immersed in Earth’s darkest shadow, the umbra—leaving only a small portion of the Moon still illuminated. 🌑
Just 16 days earlier, on August 12, 2026 the same three worlds were aligned differently: the Moon passed between Earth and the Sun, producing a total . These two eclipses occurred during the same eclipse season—a period of about 34.5 days when the geometry of the Sun, Earth and Moon allows eclipses to occur. (Sometimes, a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse occur about two weeks apart during the same eclipse season—but not always.)
❔️So why don’t solar and lunar eclipses happen every month?
Because the Moon’s orbit is tilted by about 5° relative to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Most of the time, the Moon passes above or below the alignment needed for an eclipse. Only near its orbital nodes can the Sun, Earth and Moon line up closely enough for an eclipse to occur.
A solar eclipse happens when the Moon’s shadow falls on Earth. A lunar eclipse happens when Earth’s shadow falls on the Moon.
Different shadows. Different perspectives. One celestial story. 🌌

📎 Swipe to the final slides to see the recent solar eclipse.

📷 1, 11: © P-m Hedén, twanight.org/heden
Sweden
📷 2: © Weather and Sky Photography by Kerry, twanight.org/kerry
Ontario, Canada
📷 3: Laurent Laveder, twanight.org/laveder
Brittany, France
📷 4: © Josh Dury, twanight.org/guest
📷 5: © Tunç Tezel, twanight.org/tezel
Bursa, Turkey
📷 6: © Petr Horálek Photography, twanight.org/guest
Pyrenees, Europe
📷 7: © Tamás Ladányi, twanight.org/ladanyi
Veszprém, Hungary
📷 8: © Jorgelina Alvarez | Astrofotógrafa Argentina,twanight.org/alvarez
Buenos Aires, Argentina (The lunar eclipse appears reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.)
📷 9: © Radoslav Zboran, twanight.org/guest
Spain
📷 10: Stan Honda,twanight.org/guest
Spain
Diamond rings, prominences, Baily's beads! All part of the total solar eclipse.
📷 11: © P-m Hedén, twanight.org/heden
Sweden
📷 12: , twanight.org/guest
Spain
Bailey's Beads