Noted astrophotographer and Astronomy contributor John Chumack sent us a cool video of the 2008 Orionid meteor shower ... this on the heels of a stunning Orionid image from magazine columnist Stephen James O’Meara. Both express a lot of enthusiasm for this year’s display. Read John’s comments below, then watch the video on Astronomy.com. You can see O’Meara’s image and read his comments in “ Orionid meteor image .” An unbelievable year for the Orionid...

Astronomy magazine columnist Stephen James O'Meara sent us an image he took while observing the Orionid meteor shower. Here's the message he sent along with the image: "Despite the last-quarter Moon on October 21st, the Orionid meteor shower put on a good show over Hawaii. Between 2:30 am and 3:30 am Hawaiian standard time, I counted 20 meteors. They ranged from magnitiudes –1 to 4th. Many were colorful (yellows and blues), and the activity...

STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES This morning, the husband and wife observing team of Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre forwarded to Astronomy an image and an animation of the asteroid 2008 TC3 they received from amateur astronomer friends in Italy. Imelda runs an image service company and is a contributor to Astronomy magazine. The International Astronomical Union named asteroid 6282 "Edwelda" after Imelda and Edwin. "Here's a sequence of photos...

As Astronomy ’s photo editor, I get some cool images pretty much on a daily basis. Monday, I opened my e-mail to find that one of the magazine’s long-time imagers, Keith Quattrocchi, in association with Matt Helm, has imaged a hitherto undesignated planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus. And, it’s a cool one. Helm first discovered the object after imaging an HII region (a cloud of glowing hydrogen) only 48' from the Crescent Nebula (NGC...

You know, it’s not often that I get excited about a partial lunar eclipse. Yes, the “near-perfect” alignment is cool, but it doesn’t get all that dark, and I just find myself wishing the event was a total eclipse. Well, here’s an image I’m really jazzed about. It came to me (as Photo Editor) from one of our long-time imagers, Anthony Ayiomamitis, who lives in Athens, Greece. When I look at his image, I can almost feel the Moon moving through Earth...

Today is Friday, the second day of the 2008 Northeast Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC) at Rockland Community College , in Suffern, New York. Because the college’s classes are still in session, NEAIC annually asks one of the participants to lecture to one or two classes about an astronomical subject. This year, conference organizers asked Astronomy Contributing Editor Mike D. Reynolds to give one of the lectures. And what a great choice it was! In...