BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Look up - there are beautiful sights in the sky!

A recent visitor to Crater Lake in Oregon braved mosquitos and forewent a night's sleep to enjoy the splendors of the night sky. Here is one of her pictures of the Milky Way over Crater Lake. Exquisite. Sadly, fewer and fewer people are able to see the Milky Way.

Beautiful fiery gibbous Moon, but created by sad circumstances. Heavy smoke from Canadian forest fires several days ago caused the coloring. This photo was taken by astronomer Bob King.

I've seen lots of mountains, but I've never seen lenticular clouds. From the photographs, it's quite a sight. Here is a recent picture of lentinuclar clouds formed over Mt Shasta in northern California. They're lit by moonlight - wow!

Besides needing mountains, for these clouds to form the conditions have to be just so, which is why they're not seen more commonly.

Credit and copyright: Brad Goldpaint/Goldpaint Photography.

Whoa!!! Mona, that picture taken at Mt. Shasta is absolutely astonishing!!!

I have been going out each morning this week, because I'm up before dawn, and looking at the beautiful sky to the East. For several mornings, it was quite a treat with the crescent moon.

Deanna, the moonlit lenticular clouds were otherwordly, but here's another shot of the clouds at Mr Shasta - complete with sunset. I've added this to my wallpaper pictures.

Oh Mona, that image is so beautiful!!!

I love Mt. Shasta. I've never visited, but I've driven by it four times. It's pretty spectacular - especially in the images you shared.

I would love to have seen this magnificent rainbow cloud, but it was spotted over Costa Rica, a place I've never been.

The cloud formation, called a pileus or cap cloud, forms when a building thunderstorm rises quickly in height. As it does this, the air above it cools and condenses into a cloud that looks a bit like a hat sitting on another cloud. The rainbow was the result of ice crystals refracting sunlight.

(The Internet was abuzz with people who'd decided it meant the end of the world, rather than a thunderstorm, was coming. Sigh)

This cloud that looks like the wave of a tsunami is a shelf cloud coming in over Sydney, Australia. What an amazing - and at the same time, horrifying - sight. It was nearly two miles long. It brought thunderstorms, heavy rain and high winds.

In fact, a shelf cloud is usually the leading edge of a thunderstorm. It's attached to the base of the cloud that contains the storm.The wave-like appearance is caused by the cool sinking air from the storm's downdraft spreading out over the land and meeting the warm air being drawn into the storm's updraft.

Photo: Richard Hirst
Story: Earthables

Here is a bright fireball photographed from the Swiss Alps. The fireball, probably from the Taurids meteor shower, was not only bright, but created an orange glow that lingered for several minutes. This is called a persistent train. The Orion Nebula is visible on the upper left and the bright blue star Rigel, part of the constellation of Orion, is visible to the right. The Taurids occur in late October/early November. They're not spectacular in terms of large numbers, but the ones you see tend to be bright, slow-moving and leave a trail. (Image Credit: Ivo Scheggia)

Not many people can look up and see the Milky Way arched over Monument Valley, USA. Though anyone who's watched enough classic westerns may realize that they've seen some of the iconic scenery. And although you'd have to go to Utah to see Monument Valley, you can pretty much see the Milky Way anywhere with a dark sky and a clear night.

This is a link to the whole Astronomy Picture of the Day page. If you run the cursor over the picture, you will see the names of some of the earthly features and some of the heavenly ones.

The picture was taken by the excellent astrophotographer Wally Pacholka (AstroPics.com, TWAN).