From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 27/11/19.

This is Hoag’s Object, in a newly reprocessed picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. How this unusual structure formed is something of a mystery. Remarkably within the dark part of the ring you can see another ring galaxy:-

As seen in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 20/11/19.

Three galaxies colliding. The overall system is designated ARP 273.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 6/11/19.

The Pinwheel Galaxy is more properly designated M101.

Here it is seen in an amalgamation of colour-coded photos taken in X-ray (purple,) ultra-violet (blue,) visible light (yellow) and infra-red (red) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope respectively.

Given it looks like a spinning Catherine wheel firework they should have posted this a day earlier.

Then again, they’re USian, they probably wouldn’t know the significance of the 5 November in the UK.

Another one for Halloween. Again from Astronomy Picture of the Day this time from 25/10/19.

The “Ghosts” of Cassiopeia. Which overall does look like some sort of bird of prey:-

(The photo is copyright to Tomasso Stella so I won’t infringe it by reproducing it here.)

As no-one ever says round here. (And we Scots invented the damn thing.)

The picture above is from Astronomy Picture of the Day for 26/10/2019. It’s a photo of the Cheshire Cat galaxy group – the image is an example of gravitational lensing – but it looks to me more like a Halloween lantern.

Ignore most of the pictures in that lantern link.

A Halloween lantern should never be made from a pumpkin unless you’re North American. Emigrants to that continent adapted one of its native plants to the purpose.

In these islands – well the Scottish and Northern Irish parts anyway, where the tradition continues largely unchanged to this day and from which it was exported with those emigrants before being altered in its new setting – the only proper Halloween lantern is one cut out of a turnip (which our Sassenach neighbours insist on calling a swede.) A turnip is much harder to carve than a pumpkin.

I love photographs like this.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 17/10/19.

Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Mimas and Rhea, not to mention an arc of Saturn’s rings almost end-on. Taken by the Cassini probe.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 13/10/19.

Open cluster NGC 290.

Wow. Just wow.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 12/10/19.

On the left the pale blue dot (Earth) as seen from Saturn. On the right Earth and Moon from Mercury.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 9/10/19.

The aftermath of a collision between the two galaxies NGC 7715 (off to left) with NGC 7714 (centre.)

The bright centre of the swirl is due to a burst of star formation triggered by the collision.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 3/10/19.

A beautiful jewel-like pinwheel galaxy as shown by its hydrogen emission lines.