5 Ways Our Naked-Eye Views of the Night Sky Deceive Us

5 ways our naked-eye views of the night sky deceive us

Observing the night sky consistently produces wondrous feelings of awe. This image, taken in April of 2025, shows the completed and operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory with its dome open during its First Look observation activities. Overhead, the Beehive Cluster (Messier 41) shines bright, while below, the glow of nearby small cities shines in this mountainous landscape. Credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Phys…

Another naked-eye Nova, this time in constellation Vela

A star exploded June 25th in the southern constellation Vela, and it is already visible to the unaided eye (magnitude +4.8). Eliot Herman photographed V572 Velorum using a robotic telescope in the Rio Hurtado Valley of Chile: "After a long drought, this is the second bright nova discovered this month," says Herman. This appears to be a "classical nova." First documented by Chinese astronomers some 2000 years ago, these explosions occur in binary…

Another nova – a 2nd ‘new star’ – is now visible in Vela

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Eliot Herman captured this image from Chile on June 27, 2025, and wrote: “Another bright nova in June 2025. That’s 2, after a long drought. This one (Nova Vela 0572) is very far south so I imaged it with a remote telescope. This was captured about a day-and-a-half after its discovery. And it’s now blue. It’ll be interesting to follow as it reddens in the coming weeks.” Thank you, Eliot! And now there are 2 no…