BREAKING: The largest 3D map of the Universe is now complete 🌌 Last night @desisurvey, mounted on the Nicholas U/ Mayall 4 meter telescope at @KittPeakNatObs, finished its 5-year survey of the cosmos, mapping 47M+ galaxies and quasars. 🔗noirlab.edu/public/news/noir…

🦂🔭 SCORPIO has arrived in Chile! The new facility-class instrument for the Gemini South telescope will provide powerful imaging and spectroscopic capabilities for studying rapidly changing phenomena across the Universe. 🔗 noirlab.edu/public/announcem… 📷@GeminiObs/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Throwback to one of our favorite 2025 moments: NSF–DOE @VRubinObs First Photon! They grow up so fast 🥹❤️ 15 April marked the historic arrival of the first photons to hit Rubin’s detectors. 📅 📸 RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/W. O'Mullane

Pros and cons of having an atmosphere: ✅ Lets us breathe ❌ Blurs the stars Fortunately, @Geminiobs South’s adaptive optics system uses lasers to create artificial stars that can be measured to sharpen our view. 📷: @GeminiObs/NOIRLab/AURA/NSF/M. Paredes

NSF–DOE @VRubinObs's Commissioning Camera captures the Seagull Nebula, a stellar nursery ~3700 light-years away in our Milky Way 𓅰✨ Rubin is a joint program of NSF @NOIRLabAstro and DOE’s @SLAClab. 🔗 ow.ly/Cq1g5100bnX 📸 NSF–DOE @VRubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

Fantasia has no boundaries ✨ A little The NeverEnding Story inspiration for this view 📽️🍿 This image shows part of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown, a small constellation in the southern sky near Sagittarius. 📷 Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

The SOAR Telescope looks like a giant snowball nestled in the foothills of the Chilean Andes. ❄️🏔️ Beneath its distinctive dome, a 4.1-meter telescope uses adaptive optics to capture sharp views of stars, galaxies, and fleeting cosmic events. 📷 NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/C. Corco

You can’t see dark matter in this image of the Coma Cluster, but you can see its effect on the thousands of galaxies present. Their motions are being held in check by an unseen gravitational force. #DarkMatterMonth 📷: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA/D. de Martin & M. Zamani

There’s a ghost in Pegasus 👻 Don’t worry, it’s not coming after you. This is Jones 1, a very faint planetary nebula made of glowing gas surrounding a dying star about 1,600 light-years away. 📷 T.A. Rector/U. Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN & NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

A sky that looks crocheted? 🧶☁️ A cozy crochet blanket of clouds stretches across the blue sky above the SOAR Telescope, with just a small piece of the observatory’s white dome peeking into view. 📷 NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/C. Corco #Astronomy #Chile #sunset

🌕 All-Nighter on @KittPeakNatObs! A total lunar eclipse, the Milky Way, a red nebula, and a fleet of telescopes. Just another busy night at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory! 🔭 📷 KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek

Day to night at the NSF Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope 🌞→✨ These pictures, collected over different seasons and times of day, show the beauty of the sky above NSF @cerrotololo in Chile, home to the Blanco 4-meter Telescope.

Thank you to everyone in the Tohono O’odham Nation who joined us for Open Night, & thank you to our wonderful staff/volunteers for making this event possible! We can’t wait for the next one! ✨

PIVOT! PIVOT!! 🚚🛋️ Moving a couch up narrow stairs is tough, but in 1958, scientists hauled a 16-inch telescope up unpaved switchbacks to NSF @KittPeakNatObs as part of a site survey to evaluate locations for a new national observatory. 📷: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

🌌 What happens at @GeminiObs North after dark? This timelapse gives you a glimpse of a night of observing at Gemini North, located on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi. 🎥 Sean Goebel/International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

A little Chilean mountain majesty. 🇨🇱🏔️ At about 2700 meters (8860 feet) above sea level, Cerro Pachón sits at the foothills of the Chilean Andes, where the landscape changes with the seasons. 📷 Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/C. Corco

Meet the Milky Way’s goth kid. 🖤 Circinus West — which definitely owns a Cure album — stretches 180 light-years across, 2500 light-years away. Its dark tendrils hide newborn stars in gas and dust. 📷: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA/T.A. Rector/D. de Martin/M. Kosari

🌈 Somewhere over Kitt Peak, there’s a rainbow. This double rainbow was captured at NSF @KittPeakNatObs in 1976, when the mountain looked a little different than it does today. 📷 KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/C. Portnoy

New on NOIRLab Stories 🔍🌌 Using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and AI-assisted searches, astronomers identified 76 gravitational lens candidates and used observations from the Very Large Telescope to confirm 70 of them as real. Read more: noirlab.edu/public/blog/desi…

One Gemini South wasn’t quite enough for this sunset ✨ Thanks to a perfectly still patch of water on Cerro Pachón in Chile, the telescope appears to have a twin reflected beneath it. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/C. Corco

Cause baby, you're a firework 🎤🎆 This is Pa 30, an explosive cloud of gas and dust bursting from a central hot blue star. Astronomers say it’s the likely remnant of a supernova that people on Earth saw in the year 1181. 📸: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA