Today's Nice, Quiet Sky Candy

This is too spectacular to miss.

Extremely rare 'Solar Halo' captured during sunrise today over The Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt. ☀ ⚕ pic.twitter.com/O8ZWzG5g6N

— Night Sky Today (@NightSkyToday) August 29, 2025

So, do you suppose a "super" star cluster has a cool theme song? Not that it could ever be as cool as Underdog's theme song.

Westerlund 1 is the biggest and closest "super" star cluster to Earth. Some of the stars found here shine with the brightness of almost one million Suns! This new image combines X-ray light from Chandra, optical light from @NASAHubble, and infrared light from @NASAWebb. pic.twitter.com/gOri3oF37B

— Chandra Observatory (@chandraxray) September 3, 2025

There was a lot of amateur coolness this week.

🌌 1 Hour 44 Minutes — M33 Triangulum Galaxy!
Captured by Krishna Vinod with the Seestar S50 under Bortle 3–4 skies.
⚡️208 × 30s subs, stacked and processed in PixInsight.
🌍 Imaged in Incline Village, NV, using EQ mode + IR/Cut filter for crisp broadband RGB detail.#Seestar pic.twitter.com/V7Q27Sq4gE

— Seestar (@Seestar_astro) September 3, 2025

Some baby pictures.

No more hiding, I’ll be shining, like I’m born to be! 🎶

Webb captured newborn stars glowing in the infrared within clouds of dust and gas (colored golden and orange in this image) in a star-forming region called Pismis 24. https://t.co/Jnw5cbbiI0 pic.twitter.com/798B7EBXqe

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) September 4, 2025

Something a little more edgy.

'NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge'
Image Credit & Copyright: José Rodrigues (IA, OFXB)https://t.co/I96Tn2qpLC#space #astronomy pic.twitter.com/VR73iiD7HZ

— Swetilein (@Swetilein1) September 4, 2025

Just another spectacular nebula picture.

Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) Reprocessed. Multiple nights June-August 2025. Seestar S50 in Alt-Az mode. 582x10s (Integration time 1 hours 37 minutes) stacked in Seestar App & processed in Siril, Graxpert, Cosmic Clarity & ACDSee. Location: Abbottabad, Pakistan.@smartphone_astr pic.twitter.com/h8xnK9UGQo

— Astronomer G15 (@astronomer_g15) September 4, 2025

I'm so old, I remember when Pluto was a planet and no one knew it had moons.

Actually, I'm kidding — Pluto is still a planet.

Pluto has several moons: This is Nis with a diameter of only 49.8 km across its longest dimension. It was discovered on 15 May 2005 using the Hubble Telescope.
Credit: @NASA @JHUAPL @SwRI @_RomanTkachenko pic.twitter.com/zuqzgr6O8y

— Xavi Bros (@Xavi_Bros) September 3, 2025

More baby pictures.

An interesting study shares JWST breathtaking images of a protoplanetary disk seen edge-on around the protostar IRAS04302+2247, still nestled in its birth cloud.

The young star is located 525 ly away in the Taurus star-forming region. It is nicknamed the Butterfly Star due to… pic.twitter.com/CZMu4i9nYb

— Nereide (@Nereide) September 3, 2025

A little bit of rocket art.

Falcon 9 and some clouds transit the sun during this morning’s Starlink launch ☁️🚀☀️ pic.twitter.com/Od6brF8YtD

— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) September 3, 2025

If you are in the eastern hemisphere or can get there in time, there's a lunar eclipse coming.

If you live in this part of the world, you'll have a total lunar eclipse this weekend. Go outside and watch!
details: https://t.co/08nqkLetqi@earthskyscience pic.twitter.com/hPdE3mbZwC

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) September 4, 2025

Orion is chock-full of tourist attractions.

M78 Reflection Nebula in Orion #NASA. pic.twitter.com/D41Jk4KnT7

— Alienigena11 (@Madriles6211) August 31, 2025

This is one of my favorite sights — and insights.

Michael Collins, the astronaut who took this photo in 1969, is the only human, alive or dead, not captured in the frame of this picture. pic.twitter.com/PZf0M1NWRJ

— Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary) August 27, 2025

Dark nebula. Does this make this film noir?

My latest capture - a dark nebula (LBN 438) surrounded by red hydrogen nebulosity. The background reveals distant galaxies hundreds of millions of light-years away.

Celestron RASA telescope
ZWO ASI533MC camera
Antlia L-Filter
Optolong L-eXtreme filter
Starfront Observatories pic.twitter.com/GJZyorrdjS

— Chuck's Astrophotography (@chucksastropho1) August 23, 2025

Planetary nebulae fascinate me.

Sh2-174 (Valentine's Rose Nebula) is a beautiful, ancient planetary nebula located about 980 light years from Earth in constellation Cepheus the King. Planetary nebulae are created when low-mass stars blow off their outer layers at the end of their lives. 📷 NOAO/Space #Sh2174 pic.twitter.com/LYYiQb1uBp

— Lee-Anne Gibbon (@LeeAnneGibbon1) August 31, 2025

🆕 Webb has looked into the heart of a cosmic butterfly ✨🦋

This image set showcases three views of a planetary nebula known as the Butterfly Nebula.

Read more: https://t.co/2A0DCZho7D or 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/UEEbTE3Pve

— ESA Webb Telescope (@ESA_Webb) August 27, 2025

And a little more cool video. This is another one of those "we really do live in the future" things: a university that has its own satellite.

Here's what Starship Flight 9 looked like from the TUBIN satellite. The Technical University of Berlin's INfrared satellite was in the right place at the right time.
You can see the booster ascent, plume and even the hot staging if you look carefully.
Thanks to Steffen Reinert… pic.twitter.com/gf89djovDe

— Scott Manley (@DJSnM) August 25, 2025

Wow, Sky Candy turned out to be 17 pictures this week. And I could have done more.

Related: Sky Candy With Good News

I want to throw in a little plug here. Sarah Hoyt, my friend and little-sister-by-acclimation, has a new book — or three-book series, take your pick — coming out called No Man's Land. I read it in a pre-publication eARC, and it's really something. Think, "if J.R.R. Tolkien wrote SF." It's in three volumes, but it's really one long book. I recommend it.

So, see you next week. As always, I love comments.