Sky Lights

How to read a picture, in well under 1,000 words

By Bob Berman
Feb 1, 2001 6:00 AMNov 12, 2019 6:47 AM

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With new high-tech telescopes hard at work on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and Cerro Paranal in Chile and with NASA continuing its barrage of planetary probes, space photos are becoming as common as postcards. Staggeringly dramatic, these images suffer only one fault: Most people have no idea what they're looking at. Fortunately, all it takes is a little insider knowledge to break the code.

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