butterfly nebula – welcome to somewhereville (.com)

Above: The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulas in our galaxy. This stunning nebula was previously imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Now, Webb has captured a new view of this nebula. Text from www.esa.int. Image available at www.almaobservatory.org.

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (November-December 2025) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Closing out 2025 with "The Planet Issue," including the +6,000 now-confirmed extra-solar planets and two deep dives into TRAPPIST-1 (d and e).

Somewhere in my astronomy book collection is my first-print edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Star and Planets (right), containing an actual paper clipping from the Syracuse Herald-Journal (that old) about the discovery of the first exo-planet to be somewhat confidently detected – 51 Pegasi b – back in 1995.

My, how the times have changed.

Above: The constellation Orion in all of its nebulous glory. Orange Betelgeuse is to be found in the lower-left. Imaging by Scott Rosen, astronomersdoitinthedark.com

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (September-October 2020) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure at www.astropublishing.com.

September-October 2020 includes a selected survey of astronomical content of local and cosmological interest from NASA/ESA, ESO, ALMA, as well as two feature articles from our fearless leader/editor Michele Ferrara. The feature articles in this issue discuss:

“Betelgeuse – 100 years of uncertainties” – this article was 100 years in the making, but found itself updated with as-of-August scientific reporting in the final 100 hours before going to print (well, 150). The previous (pre-August) analyses were believed to be an adequate explanation, then the new reports indicate that that previous explanation did not, by itself, explain everything observed by us all since late last year.
“In the mind of ET” – Continuing a multi-issue exobiology thread, this next article is a very interest perspective on the state of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (and not just SETI), based on the recent NASA award of Adam Frank (and collaborators) at the University of Rochester.

The browser-readable version: www.astropublishing.com/5FAM2020/

Jump right to the PDF download (15 MB): September-October 2020

For those wanting a quick look at what the issue has to offer, the Table of Contents is reproduced below.