Starship Asterisk*

Meteors, Planes, and a Galaxy over Bryce Canyon

Explanation: Sometimes land and sky are both busy and beautiful. The landscape pictured in the foreground encompasses Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA, famous for its many interesting rock structures eroded over millions of years. The skyscape above, photogenic in its own right, encompasses the arching central disk of our Milky Way Galaxy, streaks that include three passing airplanes and at least four Eta Aquariid meteors, and bright stars that include the Summer Triangle. The above image is a digital panorama created from 12 smaller images earlier this month on the night May 6. If you missed the recent Eta Aquariids meteor shower though, don't fret -- you may get an unexpected reprieve. Sky enthusiasts are waiting to see if a new meteor shower develops in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 24, when the Earth moves through a possibly dense cloud of dust and debris ejected by Comet 209P/LINEAR.

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Third plane is hard to spot, but worth it...

Ann wrote:Oh, that is a lovely image! So colorful and beautiful! The Milky Way looks splendid, the meteors add a lot of energy, and the Earthly background is sure beautiful, too.

What a great APOD!

Ann

Agreed!!! Just amazing!!!

Bryce canyon is a lovely place where you can see the stars well. This is a wonderful image. Thank you Dave Lane.

Thanks everyone! the untold story of this image is that it was 21 degrees F out (see snow on right side of the image) and a sustained 30 mph wind. There I stood in my 19 layers of clothes staring up at the Summer Triangle mocking me. I'm pretty sure it was mocking me

Dave

Definitely well worth the wind chill exposure! Trying to get orientated, if orientated is the word for which I'm searching, on the horizon, is that Humphrey's Peak right of center? The glow on either side would be Flagstaff? The faint glow to the left, between the pillar and tree, could that be Phoenix? Someone had ought to pull the plug on Las Vegas. If everyone is indoors with no sense of the passage of time (by design), why do they need to keep the outside lights on all night? It's over a hundred degrees outside during summer nights, it's not that difficult to find a casino, follow the gusts of cool air from the air conditioning. I know from experience that northeast of Flagstaff in Tuba City, you can find your way anywhere by starlight.

Oriented is the word you want.

owlice wrote:Oriented is the word you want.

Unless you are a Brit, or possibly from Down Under, in which case orientated would be the more common word.

I find it curious that an airplanes flight path doesn't appear curved at all but the background Milky Way is affected by the wide-angle lens. If it were a contrail from horizon to horizon would it be? Probably the way I'm "Oriontated"

Chris Peterson wrote:

owlice wrote:Oriented is the word you want.

Unless you are a Brit, or possibly from Down Under, in which case orientated would be the more common word.

Oh, all this time whenever I used the word "orientated" I thought I was screwing up the word and adding an extra syllable. I had no idea it was just one of those British English exception words.

You'll have to excuse me. I both misspelled and misused my word. I meant "Orion-rotated" That being the curious happenstance of Orion going from heads-up to heads-down when viewed from pole to pole and vice versa.

drlane wrote:Thanks everyone! the untold story of this image is that it was 21 degrees F out (see snow on right side of the image) and a sustained 30 mph wind. There I stood in my 19 layers of clothes staring up at the Summer Triangle mocking me. I'm pretty sure it was mocking me

Dave

It's almost Winter here and we call it (surprise, surprise) the Winter Triangle, to avoid confusion with our Summer Circle/Hexagon and the Summer Triangle within it. I popped outside last night wearing a t-shirt and saw the Winter Triangle.

Lovely image. Thanks for braving the elements. Who knew you do hoodoos so well?

...

geckzilla wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

owlice wrote:Oriented is the word you want.

Unless you are a Brit, or possibly from Down Under, in which case orientated would be the more common word.

Oh, all this time whenever I used the word "orientated" I thought I was screwing up the word and adding an extra syllable. I had no idea it was just one of those British English exception words.

For words that are spelled differently in British and American English, I often struggle remembering which is which. There is even Australian English, which is sometimes different from British English, but I just can't bring myself to take it seriously, although I probably adopt it at times without thinking. Whatever it is that I speak and write, I call it International English.

Wonderful picture. It has now pushed me over the edge - I am going to try to do photos like this. Any suggestions anyone? To help you get orientatated I have camera and tripod - software and method is what I'm looking for. Thanks

Wonderful shot of the Left Side of the Galaxy....and an awesome view no doubt any time of day or night.

:---[===] *

epszteinbenoit wrote:Third plane is hard to spot, but worth it...

I assumed that the 3 very obvious lines are the tracks of the planes, but I seem to be clearly wrong. I would be grateful therefore if someone could please let me know where the tracks of the planes and meteors are. Just how readily should I be able to see the at least four meteors? As nobody has mentioned that they are hard to see I guess my monitor is not good enough, though as far as I'm aware it is fine.

DavidLeodis wrote:I assumed that the 3 very obvious lines are the tracks of the planes, but I seem to be clearly wrong. I would be grateful therefore if someone could please let me know where the tracks of the planes and meteors are. Just how readily should I be able to see the at least four meteors? As nobody has mentioned that they are hard to see I guess my monitor is not good enough, though as far as I'm aware it is fine.

Those are meteor tracks. The planes tracks are shorter, redder, and close to the horizon. There are two on the left and one on the right.

bystander wrote:

DavidLeodis wrote:I assumed that the 3 very obvious lines are the tracks of the planes, but I seem to be clearly wrong. I would be grateful therefore if someone could please let me know where the tracks of the planes and meteors are. Just how readily should I be able to see the at least four meteors? As nobody has mentioned that they are hard to see I guess my monitor is not good enough, though as far as I'm aware it is fine.

Those are meteor tracks. The planes tracks are shorter, redder, and close to the horizon. There are two on the left and one on the right.

Thanks for that bystander, which is appreciated.

Wow, I was sure wrong as to what were the plane trails! With the explanations "three passing airplanes" and there being 3 obvious trails I assumed those were from the planes. On looking at the image more intently (better seen on enlarging the image) I can now see 3 very short red stubby lines (2 to the left and 1 in a bright area to the right) that are presumably the planes and a faint line that will be the fourth meteor. I wonder though how many people would have spotted them if there had been no comment in the explanation?

The explanation states the image is "a digital panorama created from 12 smaller images earlier this month on the night May 6". However, according to the Exif data that I have been able to find through the APOD image and that brought up through the "above image" link both state that the image create date was "May 1, 2014 4:34:54AM (timezone not specified)". While I appreciate that the time will not be accurate for a image produced from other images the differing date is very confusing. I am wondering just what date were the individual images taken?

DavidLeodis wrote:The explanation states the image is "a digital panorama created from 12 smaller images earlier this month on the night May 6". However, according to the Exif data that I have been able to find through the APOD image and that brought up through the "above image" link both state that the image create date was "May 1, 2014 4:34:54AM (timezone not specified)". While I appreciate that the time will not be accurate for a image produced from other images the differing date is very confusing. I am wondering just what date were the individual images taken?

The photographer’s own webpage says May 6, exactly the same line as the description on APOD, so that'll be the real date. Astro-photographers are usually quite accurate about their logs and notes. The Exif data has a bunch of timestamps, and only the first says May 1. My impression is that the creation date is off; there are many possibilities why that could happen (e.g. maybe the date and time function of the camera was not synchronized). I am inclined to think the other dates are accurate, as they are likely based on the date function of the computer that processed the image(s) in various steps or revisions. That would suggest this image was finalized on May 16, 00:29:25.

Case wrote:

DavidLeodis wrote:The explanation states the image is "a digital panorama created from 12 smaller images earlier this month on the night May 6". However, according to the Exif data that I have been able to find through the APOD image and that brought up through the "above image" link both state that the image create date was "May 1, 2014 4:34:54AM (timezone not specified)". While I appreciate that the time will not be accurate for a image produced from other images the differing date is very confusing. I am wondering just what date were the individual images taken?

The photographer’s own webpage says May 6, exactly the same line as the description on APOD, so that'll be the real date. Astro-photographers are usually quite accurate about their logs and notes. The Exif data has a bunch of timestamps, and only the first says May 1. My impression is that the creation date is off; there are many possibilities why that could happen (e.g. maybe the date and time function of the camera was not synchronized). I am inclined to think the other dates are accurate, as they are likely based on the date function of the computer that processed the image(s) in various steps or revisions. That would suggest this image was finalized on May 16, 00:29:25.

Thanks Case for the clarification, which is appreciated.

I am wondering how readily you found the photographer's website as there does not seem to be a direct link to it in the APOD.

DavidLeodis wrote: I am wondering how readily you found the photographer's website as there does not seem to be a direct link to it in the APOD.

I found it by googling "Dave Lane photography". His astro pics are the fourth hit on the list of results. What did you try?

owlice wrote:

DavidLeodis wrote: I am wondering how readily you found the photographer's website as there does not seem to be a direct link to it in the APOD.

I found it by googling "Dave Lane photography". His astro pics are the fourth hit on the list of results. What did you try?

'Dave Lane' in the credit to the APOD is a link to a preaddressed email form but I thought it would be impolite of me to contact Dave directly over what was not an important query of mine. For that reason I also did not try googling Dave Lane. I had just wondered if Case had been able to readily go to the website, through perhaps a link in the APOD that I was not aware of. Your "What did you try?" does seem to me to have an implied unfriendly tone to it. . If that was not your intention then I apologise for suggesting that it was.

David, googling Dave Lane does not require that you contact him. My tone was not intended to be unfriendly; it's one of puzzlement. I'm still puzzled.

Is one who uses the term Oriontated an Oriontater? Can one make fries from an Oriontater, or O'tater salad? Sez here Oriontaters taste best when picked while Orion is directly overhead.