SUNSET: 
Peak Picked for World's Largest Scope
If you were building a mega-telescope with an aperture half the length of a football field, where in the world would you put it?
Mystery Eclipse Caught in the Act
After struggling for decades to understand why Epsilon Aurigae's partial eclipses last so long, astronomers are finally watching the event as it happens.
World's Largest Solar Scope
If one final permit can be obtained — and some Hawaiian preservationists won over — construction on the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope should begin later this year.
WISE Sees First Light
Scientists unveil the first image from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite, which will map the sky in depth and detail at new wavelengths.
Mel's Arecibo Adventure
A globetrotting mascot gets a behind-the-scenes tour of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope.
Big Pix from Herschel
Europe's new Herschel Space Observatory is up and running and showing what it can do. You've never seen the far-infrared sky like this.
ALMA Dish Takes the High Road
The Chajnantor plateau in Chile's Atacama Desert has an elevation of more than 16,000 feet — harsh conditions for humans, but perfectly suited to the world's greatest array of submillimeter-wave radio telescopes, now under construction.
Refurbished Hubble Shows Its Stuff
Hubble's upgraded cameras and instruments are fully up and running. NASA has released a bunch of new pictures and results showing off what the buffed-up scope can do.
Two Observatories Saved from Wildfire
Although Southern California's devastating Station Fire still rages nearby, the Mount Wilson and Stony Ridge observatories have escaped destruction.
Raging Fire Threatens Mount Wilson
One of the world's most famous and historic observatories is threatened by an out-of-control wildfire in California.
Planetary Preemies?
Protoplanetary disks around three young stars turn out to have large central holes, which were presumably cleared by still-growing Jupiter-mass planets. But there’s a problem: the stars are too young.
IYA's 24-hour Scope-a-thon
Have you ever wanted to visit a famous observatory perched atop some faraway mountaintop? This weekend you can, thanks to the International Year of Astronomy's "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" — a live, 24-hour webcast.
China Breaks Ground for Giant Radio Dish
In 2014, if construction goes as planned, Chinese astronomers will begin to probe distant cosmic targets with the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope.
Hubble Mission Gets OK for May
NASA managers have decided on a date to dispatch Space Shuttle flight STS 125, the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
New Eyes on the Cosmic-Ray Sky
High on the Argentinian pampa, 1,600 water-filled "eyes" await the arrival of the most powerful high-energy particles in the universe.
Telescope Mirrors from Antifreeze?
Buy a jug of ethylene glycol at the auto-supply store. Add iron-oxide powder and shake vigorously. Pour into a shallow pan, spray on a pinch of powdered silver, and turn on a magnetic field. Voilà! — instant mirror! Can it really be that easy? Not yet, but a promising new technology suggests that, someday, the answer might be "yes."
Big Scope TV Alert!
The National Geographic Channel provides an up-close look at the Very Large Telescope.
Shiny Eye for Airborne Observatory
The main mirror for the world's most advanced flying observatory has been transformed from a carefully shaped and polished piece of glass into a highly reflective optical component ready to study the infrared universe.
VISTA Survey Nears the Starting Line
A giant telescope with a deeply curved mirror is on its way to revolutionizing our view of the infrared sky.
"First Light" for Twin-Eyed Telescope
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona achieved a milestone when both of the telescope's 8.4-meter mirrors pointed toward the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. Last week the LBT folks released the images.
