How to capture the violent tumult of our roiling universe, moment by moment

May 3, 2016

Comet ISON is seen in this five-minute exposure taken at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on November 8 at 5:40 a.m. EST (1040 GMT), courtesy of NASA. The image has a field of view of roughly 1.5 degrees by 1 degree and was captured using a colour charge-coupled device (CCD) camera attached to a 14" (36 cm) telescope located at Marshall. At the time of this picture, Comet ISON was 97 million miles (156 million km) from Earth, heading toward a close encounter with the sun on November 28. Located in the constellation of Virgo, it is now visible in a good pair of binoculars.

We now know that the night sky is a seething, bubbling tableau. Image: REUTERS/Aaron Kingery/NASA/MSFC/Handout via REUTERS

Bryan Gaensler

Director, University of Toronto

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