APOD #4 on "Children of the Sun"

On November 11th, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter were found to be within 15 degrees of the Sun. In the image, the Sun's size and position is represented by the white circle in the occulting disk of the coronograph. The coronograph is onboard the SOHO, of SOlar Heliospheric Observatory. The horizontal streaks, especially the one that cuts across Venus, are there because the brightness of the planets Venus and Jupiter are overloading the image.
In the image, one can see a double star near Mars. This is Zubenelgenubi. Zubenelgenubi was once part of the southern claw of Scorpius, its partner in the northern claw being Zubeneschamali.

APOD #3 on SWAN's ghostly tail

The ion tail in the picture is made up of ionized gas that is energized by the Sun's unltraviolet light. The solar winds sculpt the tail, so that it is always facing away from the Sun. The solar wind is made up of particles that are moved around due to the Sun's magnetic field. The tail of comet SWAN is tinted blue. The blue color appears because atoms are combining into carbon monoxide. The coma of the comet is green, due to the trace amount of cyanogen, which is N#CC#N, being heated by the Sun.

The comet itself unexpectedly brightened last week, which made it a naked-eye magnitude. The comet has passed both the Earth and the Sun, which means soon it will not be able to be seen and will head off into interstellar space.

APOD #3 on Messier 76

M76 is a faint nebula with the common name of "Little Dumbbell Nebula," because it resembles M27. Both M76 and M27 are both planetary nebulae, which, unlike what the name suggests, is actually gases given off by a dying star. According to Messier, it is "at the right foot of Andromeda," which also contains M31, The Andromeda Galaxy. The nebula itself resembles a donut but, due to our almost edge-on view, it appears box shaped. It is thought to be 3 to 5 thousand light years away, which makes the nebula over 1 light year in diameter. The dying star of the nebula can be seen in the center of the image. It is the blue star in the binary system.