Sights Nominees

We say “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The pictures of these natural phenomena have perhaps inspired many more. Plato (in Timeaeus) ties together the sense of sight with what was later to become the study of astronomy:

“God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in heaven, and apply them…”

We can spy in the night sky – depending on the time of year – several of these nominees with the unaided eye. Others represent spectacular deep sky objects whose true beauty can only be revealed once the photographic plate has remembered far more photons than the human eye can ever hope to collect in an instant.

The Original Nominations

The following candidates were nominated under the Sights category. Highlighted candidates have a separate description page already posted to this site. To view any highlighted nominees, place your cursor anywhere over the text of the nominee and click (pop-ups must be enabled on your browser):

Antares
Andromeda Galaxy
Centaurus A
Crab Nebula (M1)
Great Nebula (M42)
Earthrise
Evening Star (Venus)
Halley’s Comet
Hubble Pillars of Creation in Eagle Nebula
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Hyades Cluster
Io erupting
Jupiter’s Red Spot
Magellanic Clouds
Orion et al (Rigel, Betelguese, M42)
Perseid Meteors
Pleiades Cluster
Polaris
Quasars
Ring Nebula (M57)
Saturn’s Rings (Voyager 2 Image)
Sirius
Summer Triangle – (Vega-Altari-Denab)
Tycho’s Star (1572 Nova in Cassiopeia)
Ursa Major
Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

Not all the nominees made the top 100. Still, we’ve tried to include a short write-up on each of them. Any nominee that finished in the top 100 greatest images and imaginations in astronomy and space exploration will have its rank listed in the upper left hand corner of the specific page devoted to that nominee.