This section is for objects that don't readily fall under the categories of Galaxies, Bright Nebulae or Dark Nebulae.
Images here include landscape shots of the Milky Way, asterisms and comets
ASTERISMS
An asterism is an observed pattern or group of stars in the sky. Asterisms can be any identified star pattern, and therefore are a more general concept than the 88 formally defined constellations. Constellations are based upon asterisms, but unlike asterisms, constellations are defined regions with official boundaries which together encompass the entire sky.
Asterisms range from simple shapes of just a few stars to more complex collections of many stars covering large portions of the sky. The stars themselves may be bright naked-eye objects or fainter, even telescopic, but stars within an asterism are generally all of a similar brightness to each other.
The larger brighter asterisms include the ones for which people are most familiar, such as the constellations of Orion or the Big Dipper. The asterisms in the gallery link below are some of the smaller ones.
COMETS
Comets are essentially small bodies orbiting the Sun with a substantial fraction of their composition being ices. When a comet comes close to the Sun, the ices sublimate (go directly from the solid to the gas phase) and form, along with entrained dust particles, a bright outflowing atmosphere around the comet nucleus known as a coma. As dust and gas in the coma flow freely into space, the comet forms two tails, one composed of ionized molecules and radicals and one of dust.
Comets have highly eccentric orbits around the Sun which range from several years to several million years. Known since antiquity, comets were seen as the harbingers of doom and considered as bad omens of deaths of kings or noble men, or coming catastrophes, or even interpreted as attacks by heavenly beings against terrestrial inhabitants.
Comets are sometimes confused with meteors. Meteors are smaller fragments of asteroids or comets, typically pebble-sized or smaller. When they enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up, they create a bright streak of light often referred to as a "shooting star". Most meteors burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, those that survive passage and land on the Earth are known as meteorites.
NIGHT TIME LANDSCAPES
A selection of landscape images taken to capture the night sky