Starship Asterisk*

APOD Robot wrote: Explanation: From an altitude of over 5,000 meters, the night sky view from Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes is breathtaking in more ways than one. The dark site's rarefied atmosphere, at about 50 percent sea level pressure, is also extremely dry. That makes it ideal for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) designed to explore the universe at wavelengths over 1,000 times longer than visible light. Near the center of the the panoramic scene, ALMA's 7 and 12 meter wide dish antennas are illuminated by a young Moon nestled in the arc of the Milky Way. ALMA's antenna configurations are intended to achieve a resolution comparable to space telescopes by operating as an interferometer. At left, a meteor's streak and the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, the Large (bottom) and Small Magellanic Clouds grace the night.

Sandstone wrote:Question for those APOD followers from the southern hemisphere:
I've never been down that far south, and have often wondered just what the Magellenic clouds look like to the unaided eye. I've seen photos, of course, but can anyone describe what it's like to actually look up and see them?
Thanks,
Sandstone

Sandstone wrote:Question for those APOD followers from the southern hemisphere:
I've never been down that far south, and have often wondered just what the Magellenic clouds look like to the unaided eye. I've seen photos, of course, but can anyone describe what it's like to actually look up and see them?
Thanks,
Sandstone

Sandstone wrote:I've never been down that far south, and have often wondered just what the Magellenic clouds look like to the unaided eye. I've seen photos, of course, but can anyone describe what it's like to actually look up and see them?

There was a 50% moon towards the right. Without the moon the view is better but this is a good average I think.

luigi wrote:Is the meteor a real meteor? There are three vertical marks on that part of the image, one bright and two fuzzier. What are those?

Chris Peterson wrote:

luigi wrote:Is the meteor a real meteor? There are three vertical marks on that part of the image, one bright and two fuzzier. What are those?

I see two definite meteors (the dim streaks), and one bright streak that has a light profile that more closely resembles a satellite flare (e.g. Iridium) than a meteor, but certainly could be a meteor. At this resolution, with the data available, there's no way to tell from the image alone. A satellite flare can often be tracked down by looking at what was in that location at that time, but it's more effort than I care to engage in just at the moment.

luigi wrote:Are you sure those streaks are meteors? If you say so then fine because you really know about meteor trails.
They are parallel to each other and that's strange, if you get 3 meteors what are the chances the 3 of them are parallel? I think it's possible but not very probable. That makes me think those 3 things can be some sort of lens artifact or flare.

If I remember correctly there was another APOD some time ago with 4 parallel streaks, and people analyzed the chances of 4 iridium flares or so. I'm thinking there's some form of lens artifact or flare that's quite common in night photos and could have produced those streaks and these streaks too.

Wolf Kotenberg wrote:In this APOD a reference if made to a space telescope. How much longer is the HUBBLE telescope expected to live ?

APOD Robot wrote: The View from Chajnantor

Beyond wrote:
Hey! A pre-StarTrek Wesley in a black shirt -standing by- the singer. Last i saw of him, i think he was about to find out how to travel without a space-ship, like the "Traveler" from Tau-Alpha (something) does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton wrote:

[size=150]Wil Wheaton Wesley Crusher[/size]

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<<Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor and writer.

Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 TV film A Long Way Home, and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH. He had a minor role in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me, the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Body.

From 1987 to 1990, he appeared in the role of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation throughout its first four seasons. Although his Star Trek character, and by extension Wheaton himself, was disliked by a vocal group of Trekkies during TNG's first run, he commented about his critics in an interview for WebTalk Radio:

"Later, I determined that the people who were really, really cruel – like the Usenet weenies – really are a statistically insignificant number of people. And I know, just over the years from people who've e-mailed me at my web site and people who I've talked to since I started going to Star Trek conventions again in the last five years, that there are so many more people who really enjoyed everything about the show, including my performance, including the character."

Wheaton's Law: "Don't Be a Dick!"

Wheaton's Law Revised is an expansion by comics artist and writer Bill Willingham,
which states: "Don't be a dick, but it's okay to play one on TV.">>