SUNSET: 
Hubble Celebrates as Shuttle Retires
Hubble is beginning celebrations early for its 22nd birthday with this composite image, a fantastic combination of ground- and space-based observations of the Tarantula Nebula.
Giant Telescope Starts with a Bang
Crews have begun to remove 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to make room for what will be the world’s largest telescope.
Hubble's Hidden Treasures Competition
Try your hand at creating a beautiful Hubble image and you might win an Apple iPod Touch or iPad.
Twin-Eyed Telescope Sees Sharp Stars
The Large Binocular Telescope has opened one of its new eyes on the sky, revealing exoplanets and stars with a precision that rivals the best ground-based observatories astronomers have.
Closure Looms for Keck Interferometer
With NASA funding ending, astronomers will soon shut down the optical plumbing that links the giant Keck telescopes — the most powerful interferometer of its kind on the planet.
A Bold Plan to Study Dark Energy
Beginning later this year, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment will begin to analyze the spectra of one million primordial galaxies — and, its designers hope, get some answers about the mysterious force that's accelerating the expansion of the universe.
Vast New Trove of Variable Stars
Newly online: light curves for 198 million stars. The latest great mass of variable-star data comes from the Catalina Sky Survey — which is actually looking for asteroids.
ALMA Radio Array Gets to Work
High in the Chilean Andes, at the nosebleed altitude of 16,400 feet (5,000 m), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array has begun to probe the depths of the radio universe as never before.
Webb Telescope: Progress and Problems
Despite threats by the House of Representatives to cut funding, the James Webb Space Telescope plans move ahead.
Messy Cleanup Awaits Subaru Telescope
It's always bad news when your coolant line ruptures and spews antifreeze everywhere. It's really bad news when the stuff leaks all over one of the world's largest telescopes.
The Star That Changed Our Universe
Modern observers have revisited a dim variable star in the Andromeda Galaxy whose discovery in 1923 rocked the astronomical world.
Closeup of a Black-Hole Powerhouse
Come along with radio astronomers as they zoom in on the powerful, high-energy jets of Centaurus A and the supermassive black hole at its heart.
Praising Arizona — II
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona.
Praising Arizona — I
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona
Forced "Hibernation" for SETI Telescope
Astronomers have shut down the innovative Allen Telescope Array in northern California — a huge blow to the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
McDonald Observatory Dodges Wildfire
The Rock House Fire has consumed more than 300 square miles in West Texas and came within about a mile of the telescopes atop Mount Locke before abating. But the nearby town of Fort Davis wasn't so fortunate.
Gemini Telescope's "Bad-Seeing Blaster"
Ten years in development, a new system now being tested in Chile uses a 50-watt laser to create a constellation of five artificial stars high in the atmosphere. The goal? Soon it will allow the giant Gemini Telescope to record ultrasharp views never before possible.
"Hidden Treasures" Winners Announced
It was challenging to pick the best of the best from among nearly 100 entries. But there's no argument that the melding of raw European Southern Observatory images with amateur astrophotographers' creativity has produced stunning results.
Create Great Images, Win Cool Stuff!
Are you up for a challenge? Work some computer magic on images obtained with the ESO telescopes, and you might win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Kicking SOFIA's Tires
Take a peek inside an amazing "flying telescope" now being readied for routine observing runs in the stratosphere.
