The Ward Beecher Planetarium

05/27/2026

PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula (APOD: 2026 May 27)
Image Credit & Copyright: Bernard Miller Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260527.html

Explanation: What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1. This planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5th the diameter of the full moon. The red and blue-ish green colors trace hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively, that have been excited and ionized by the nebula's central white dwarf. The headphone shape, where two lobes of hydrogen puncture the inner region of oxygen, adds this object to a long list of oddly shaped nebulae. The morphology of such strange nebulae hint at the presence of a stellar or planetary companion, which can stir the material flowing out from the dying star. You can listen to Hubble and JWST sonifications of planetary nebulae through your very own headphones!

https://www.facebook.com/bernard.miller.752/
https://kerockcliffe.com/
https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sci/bio/keighley.e.rockcliffe
https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/
https://csst.umbc.edu/directory/
https://cresst2.umd.edu/

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=260527

05/23/2026

Messier 2 (APOD: 2026 May 23)
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260523.html

Explanation: After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster's central 40 light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky Way, also known as NGC 7089, is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption, was recently found to be associated with Messier 2.

https://spacetelescope.org
https://www.nasa.gov
https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4564

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=260523

05/21/2026

A Collision of Galaxy Clusters (APOD: 2026 May 21)
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/C. Watson et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk and P. Edmonds Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260521.html

Explanation: This big beautiful spiral shines in X-ray light. It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy. It belongs to Abell 2029, a galaxy cluster one billion light-years away. Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe that are supported by gravity. Abell 2029 is formed by thousands of galaxies, surrounded by a huge cloud of hot gas and the equivalent of hundreds of trillions times the mass of the Sun in dark matter. The spiral is made of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, heated to tens of millions of degrees. It was found in a recent study that used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to show that Abell 2029 had a collision with a smaller cluster four billion years ago. The collision affected the gravitational field and caused the intracluster gas to slosh, like wine moving in a wine glass, shaping the spiral.

https://www.nasa.gov/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/chandra/
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae2026
https://panstarrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/chandra/
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/about/about-smithsonian-astrophysical-observatory
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/people/nancy-ra-wolk
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/people/peter-edmonds
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=260521

05/17/2026

See this stunning view for yourself May 18th-20th📸 The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter are lining up for a series of close encounters, and each night brings a slightly different view.

Read the full story by Bob King: https://bit.ly/4uT0Ikx

Stay ahead of upcoming celestial events with Sky & Telescope! Subscribe today: https://skyandtelescope.org/subscribe

05/14/2026

Messier Catalog at Uniform Scale (APOD: 2026 May 14)
Image Credit: Sylvain Villet Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260514.html

Explanation: What are some of the most interesting astronomical objects you can see in the night sky? Armed with a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you can look for the very popular objects in the Messier Catalog. Most of them, but not all, are also visible from the southern half of the Earth. The featured image shows all 110 objects in the catalog at uniform scale. Charles Messier created the catalog in the 18th century. He was interested in comets, and his catalog was a list of known comet-like "objects to avoid" in the sky when observing or hunting for comets. The deep sky objects in the catalog include a supernova remnant (the Crab Nebula, M1), other galaxies (such as Andromeda, M31), nebulae (e.g. the Orion Nebula, M42, a star-forming region) and stellar clusters (such as the Pleiades, M45, a bright young open cluster).

https://www.instagram.com/sylvain.villet/
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=260514

05/13/2026

Watch the crescent Moon dance with the planets when it returns next week.
Read more: https://buff.ly/iRu48oX

05/12/2026

Low in the eastern dawn Wednesday and Thursday mornings, the waning crescent Moon guides your way to difficult Saturn and even more difficult Mars.
https://buff.ly/e8bMnhc

05/04/2026

https://youtu.be/Qt9pdwB8XJM?si=q9T2Nt_aNNrhz3Xz

1 like. "May 2026 night sky guide"

05/03/2026

THAT'S A WRAP! We'll see you again during the Summer Festival of the Arts in July!

05/02/2026

DOORS ARE OPEN! The LAST SHOW of our public season starts at 8:00. Come down and help us choose what it'll be!