About the NOAO Image Gallery
Welcome to the NOAO Image Gallery. The gallery includes pictures taken with the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and also pictures of our telescopes, instruments and history.
- Items in the Gemini and WIYN subcategories are not
necessarily in the main category.
- Items are being added continually, both from older images
which must be digitized, and from new observations. If you are
interested in something specific which you cannot find here, even after
searching for it,
please ask us.
Also, some images have only rudimentary descriptions: if you need more
detail, please
ask us.
- We are the national facility for ground-based optical astronomy. We do not have space-based images, for which you should consider the Space Telescope Science Institute or the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and cross-references therefrom. Neither do we carry pictures at other than optical and infrared wavelengths, such as radio (see, for example, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory), ultraviolet (try the International Ultraviolet Explorer images, or the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer image archive), or X-ray or gamma-ray (how about NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center, or the site for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory?). For meteor showers and other fireball or transient atmospheric events, start at the American Meteor Society, which maintains a good set of images and links. And there's always AstroWeb!
The astronomical images presented on these pages are provided through the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, unless otherwise noted. If you plan to use any of these images for other than your personal enjoyment please read our copyright statement.
