4.3 APOD

This is a really pretty picture of the night sky taken over Sweden. What makes this picture really cool are the amount of amazing things that can be seen in it. Not only are the snow-capped mountains and the trees very picturesque, but there are quite a few astronomical beauties captured in the photo as well. Red and green auroras can be seen in the distant sky. The red comes from a number of different emission nebulas including the Heart and Soul Nebula which is located in the constellation Cassiopeia, about 6,000 light-years away from Earth. Also in the picture, the Andromeda galaxy and the central plane of the Milky Way are visible. In addition to the Heart and Soul Nebula, the red gas comes from IC1396 and the North America Nebula. It is very rare to see all of these celestial bodies in one night, let alone to capture them in one photograph.

4.2 APOD

This is a really cool picture of a Large Magellanic Cloud, the largest satellite galaxy of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The cloud, which lies about 180,000 light-years away from Earth, spans about 15 light-years across. In long exposure photographs like this one, LMC's resemble spiral galaxies. This specific cloud was home to the largest supernova in modern history. It got it's name because it is visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere and the explorer, Magellan, used the cloud to help him navigate. The Small Magellanic Cloud is located next to the Large Magellanic Cloud. The SMC is home to hundreds of millions of stars.