Starship Asterisk*

Mars in a Manger

Explanation: At opposition in late January, Mars shone very brightly in planet Earth's night sky, among the stars of the constellation Cancer the Crab. Since then the Red Planet has been fading, but still lingers in Cancer during April and May. In mid-April, Mars wandered remarkably close to Cancer's famous star cluster M44, the Beehive Cluster. M44 is also known by an older name, Praesepe, Latin for cradle or manger. Captured in this 60 second time exposure made on April 14, a yellow-tinged Mars and M44 are near the center of the field, seemingly just beyond the reach of a pine tree. Of course, M44's stars are about 600 light-years away, while Mars was more like 600 light-seconds from Earth. The digital photograph was made with a camera mounted on a telescope tracking the stars through dark skies above a camp ground in Virginia, USA. During the exposure, passing car lights briefly illuminated the tree branches.

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Is that a larch?

The picture reminds me of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting The Lawrence Tree.

looks like the discovery of the pine tree nebula to me, or is this the mysterious dark matter?

Peter Smith wrote:The picture reminds me of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting The Lawrence Tree.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002458/ wrote: 3D Anaglyph: Weird channels of Olympica Fossae
The Planetary Society Blog Apr. 26, 2010
By Emily Lakdawalla

3D Anaglyph: Olympica Fossae


<<Put on red-blue glasses to enjoy this view of Olympica Fossae, a set of channels incised
into the plains east of Olympus Mons and south of Alba Patera. NASA / JPL / MSSS >>

It looks like a not-very-healthy pine to me.

With all the bright, colorful space pictures that we get to see on APOD, the only comment that i can make about Mars in a Manger is - Baa-a-a-a-a-a.

Coincidentally I went out to stare at the stars last night, the rain having finally been pushed off by a rare bit of high pressure. A cluster near the zenith caught my binocular-assisted eyes and that seemed to be Mars near it. Now I know it's the Beehive Cluster.

I find this view to be very interesting. I love the spectacular Hubble views, the galaxies in collision, the planetary nebulae in ultaviolet, but once in a while it's good to be reminded we can see interesting sky views from way down here in our atmosphere-infested gravity well.

Rob

rstevenson wrote:I find this view to be very interesting. I love the spectacular Hubble views, the galaxies in collision, the planetary nebulae in ultaviolet, but once in a while it's good to be reminded we can see interesting sky views from way down here in our atmosphere-infested gravity well.

Rob

This.

Praesepe is also Latin for "beehive". That, surely, is the original meaning of the name when applied to M44. The "manger" idea is presumably a later mistranslation inspired by the Christian nativity story.

jisles wrote:Praesepe is also Latin for "beehive". That, surely, is the original meaning of the name when applied to M44. The "manger" idea is presumably a later mistranslation inspired by the Christian nativity story.

No, the representation of this cluster as a manger predates Christianity. A manger is a trough or feeder for livestock, and the Greeks (and then the Romans, thus the Latin name) saw M44 as a manger for two donkeys, gamma Cancer and delta Cancer (also known as Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis, the northern and southern asses).

jisles wrote:Praesepe is also Latin for "beehive".

"Praesaepe" is definitely the Latin word for "manger".
The Latin word combination "Preasaepibus arcere" means "beehive". So I just can agree with Chris Peterson.