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amidthestarstours.com
Amid the Stars
@amidthestarstours.com
68 followers 28 following 54 posts
Astronomy educator and writer in Southern California.
I post space images with breakdowns, astronomy fun facts, and articles on various space topics.
Amid the Stars is a guided stargazing experience in the San Bernardino Mountains.
amidthestarstours.com
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amidthestarstours.com
The Space Shuttle Endeavour silhouetted by an orbital sunset as it approaches the ISS.

As the Sun is fully behind the Earth, the Earth is a silhouette, but the atmosphere is able to scatter light around the planet. This is why it's not completely dark immediately after sunset. (1/5)

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪🛰️
A silhouette of a space shuttle against a sunset in orbit. Behind the shuttle are distinct bands of color. First red-orange, then white-blue, and finally dark blue before the black of space.
February 13, 2026 at 10:15 PM
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There comes a time in any star's life when it has to move out from its childhood home. This is part of the Tarantula Nebula, a stellar nursery. As the stars reach maturity, their stellar winds will push the remaining gas of the nebula away, leaving behind an open star cluster. (1/3)

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪🛰️
A large diffuse nebula with a large concentration of bright blue stars at its center. Around the star cluster is a bubble where the nebula has been pushed away by the stellar winds of the stars.
February 6, 2026 at 9:47 PM
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The objects featured here are HH49 and HH50, as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. HH stands for Herbig–Haro object, which is a type of nebula formed when narrow jets of gas are created from newborn stars colliding with the nearby gas clouds they formed out of.

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪🛰️
An image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope featuring a towering, pillar-like cloud of interstellar gas and dust in shades of red and orange. The pillar extends diagonally from the bottom-right toward the top-left, appearing dense and semi-opaque with swirling, textured layers. At the very tip of the pillar, a bright, prominent blue light is surrounded by a faint, circular reddish ring. Stars and galaxies appear scattered across the background.
February 3, 2026 at 10:27 PM
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Compare Webb's image of IC 5332 to that taken by Hubble. Hubble sees the world in the visible and ultraviolet spectrums, which reveals a different picture. The interstellar dust of the Webb infrared image is just barely visible as dark patches where the visible and UV light is blocked. (2/3)

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IC 5332 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. A typical spiral galaxy with clear spiral arms. Unlike the image from Webb, the finer structure of the spiral arms cannot clearly be seen.
February 2, 2026 at 12:32 AM
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We've all seen the grand spiral structures of galaxies, but have you ever seen the finer structure within? Usually, the interstellar dust that creates this form is invisible, but the James Webb Space Telescope is equipped to reveal the hidden detail using its infrared imaging. (1/3)

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪
IC 5332 as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope. A spiral galaxy made up of an intricate and twisted web of filaments. Behind it, further away galaxies are visible in the background.
February 2, 2026 at 12:32 AM
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This is an up-close photo of Saturn's rings, but it also shows so much more. Those two little dots are actually the Earth and Moon as seen from over 1.4 billion kilometers away by the Cassini spacecraft. Everything you know and love is on that dot.

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪
A close-up photograph of Saturn's rings, captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The rings appear as wide, textured bands of beige, tan, and gold, stretching diagonally across the frame. To the left of the rings is the black void of space, featuring two tiny, bright white dots. In the upper-left corner, a much thinner ring of Saturn is visible.
January 31, 2026 at 11:48 PM
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NGC 6357, known as the Lobster Nebula, is a diffuse nebula over 1,000 light-years across. This image is actually a composite of three different spectrums. The blue is visible light, the orange is infrared, and the pink is X-ray.

#Astronomy ⚛️🧪
A wide-field composite view of NGC 6357, also known as the Lobster Nebula. The image reveals blue visible light, orange infrared, and pink X-ray data, highlighting long gas filaments coiling around huge cavities where massive new stars are forming.
January 30, 2026 at 10:15 PM