Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects. This data is then analyzed using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. These two fields complement each other. Theoretical astronomy seeks to explain observational results and observations are used to confirm theoretical results.
Astronomy is one of the few sciences in which amateurs play an active role. This is especially true for the discovery and observation of transient events. Amateur astronomers have helped with many important discoveries, such as finding new comets. (Full article...)
The following are images from various astronomy-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Segment of the astronomical ceiling of Senenmut's Tomb (circa 1479–1458 BC), depicting constellations, protective deities, and twenty-four segmented wheels for the hours of the day and the months of the year (from History of astronomy)
Image 8Places like Paranal Observatory offer crystal clear skies for observing astronomical objects with or without instruments. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 9Amateur astronomy groups are often involved in outreach to introduce astronomy to the general public (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 10Amateur astronomer recording observations of the sun. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 13ALMA is the world's most powerful telescope for studying the Universe at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 14Portrait of the Flemish astronomer Ferdinand Verbiest who became head of the Mathematical Board and director of the Observatory of the Chinese emperor in 1669 (from Astronomer)
Image 17Comparison of CMB (Cosmic microwave background) results from satellites COBE, WMAP and Planck documenting a progress in 1989–2013 (from History of astronomy)
Image 21An example of a gravitational lens found in the DESI Legacy Surveys data. There are four sets of lensed images in DESI-090.9854-35.9683, corresponding to four distinct background galaxies—from the outermost giant red arc to the innermost bright blue arc, arranged in four concentric circles. All of them are gravitationally warped—or lensed—by the orange galaxy at the very center. Dark matter is expected to produce gravitational lensing also. (from Physical cosmology)
Image 24An image of the Cat's Paw Nebula created combining the work of professional and amateur astronomers. The image is the combination of the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope of the La Silla Observatory in Chile and a 0.4-meter amateur telescope. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 26The inflationary theory as an augmentation to the Big Bang theory was first proposed by Alan Guth of MIT. Inflation solves the 'horizon problem' by making the early universe much more compact than was assumed in the standard model. Given such smaller size, causal contact (i.e., thermal communication) would have been possible among all regions of the early universe. The image was an adaptation from various generic charts depicting the growth of the size of the observable universe, for both the standard model and inflationary model respectively, of the Big Bang theory. (from Physical cosmology)
Image 37Artist conception of the Big Bang cosmological model, the most widely accepted out of all in physical cosmology (neither time nor size to scale) (from Physical cosmology)
The Cat's Eye Nebula (also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomerWilliam Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the object has had high-resolution images by the Hubble Space Telescope revealing knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, being illuminated by the central hot planetary nebula nucleus (PNN).
It is a well-studied object that has been observed from radio to X-raywavelengths. At the centre of the Cat's Eye Nebula is a dying Wolf Rayet star, the sort of which can be seen in the Webb Telescope's image of WR 124. The Cat's Eye Nebula's central star shines at magnitude +11.4. Hubble Space Telescope images show a sort of dart board pattern of concentric rings emanating outwards from the centre. (Full article...)
The Beehive Cluster (also known as Praesepe (Latin for "manger"), M44, NGC 2632, or Cr 189), is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer and one of the nearest open clusters to Earth. Under dark skies, the Beehive Cluster looks like a small nebulous object to the naked eye, and has been known since ancient times.
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