Explanation: Stars come out as evening twilight fades in this serene skyscape following the Persian proverb "Night hides the world, but reveals a universe." The scene finds the Sun setting over northern Kenya and the night will soon hide the shores of Lake Turkana, home to many Nile crocodiles. The region is also known for its abundance of hominid fossils. On that past November night, a brilliant Venus, then the world's evening star, dominates the starry skies above. But also revealed are faint stars, cosmic dust clouds, and glowing nebulae along the graceful arc of our own Milky Way galaxy.
<<The title of Gardner's essays, which are drawn from an output of nearly 60 years, comes from Lord Dunsany's The Laughter of the Gods: "A man is a small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders." Substitute cosmos for night, and one has the principle behind the contents-a recapitulation, often involving the recycling of already recycled writings, of Gardner's polymath productivity. Recreational wisdom, much of it culled from his columns in Scientific American and reviews in the New York Review of Books, emerges in every essay, but not every essay is for every reader. Many are absorbing, some idiosyncratic, others abstruse. His intellectual heroes are from a variety of pursuits and times: Lewis Carroll, Oz creator L. Frank Baum, philosopher William James, fantasist G.K. Chesterton, mathematician Roger Penrose. Gardner's doghouse is more crowded and includes educator Robert Hutchins and his "Great Books" missionary Mortimer Adler, Sigmund Freud for "an absence of empirical underpinning," Steven Spielberg for his "tooth fairy" Close Encounters of the Third Kind, T.S. Eliot for cramped thinking, Arthur Conan Doyle and dozens of other seemingly intelligent souls for succumbing to spiritualism and other pseudosciences and religious orthodoxies. Also unspared are supply-side economists such as Arthur Laffer, and literary cranks promoting alternative authors of Shakespeare's plays and grubbing for profundities in Finnegans Wake. "My own opinion," he contends, "is that the gullibility of the public today makes citizens of the nineteenth century look like hard-nosed skeptics.">>
pferkul wrote:Any idea what this is on the horizon?
Hard to say. Looks like a windmill, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, like nearly all TWAN images, there is virtually no information provided. If I ran APOD, I'd refuse to run TWAN images. But hey... not my call.
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Was it serendipity or careful planning that Venus happens to be captured in this expansive photograph very near where the Milky Way's galactic center, about 26,000 light years distant, lies behind our sister planet.
Carl Eriksson wrote:Was it serendipity or careful planning that Venus happens to be captured in this expansive photograph very near where the Milky Way's galactic center, about 26,000 light years distant, lies behind our sister planet.
You can plan a shot, but you can't do anything about where the astronomical objects are. So I'd say one part serendipity, one part planning (which comes from being aware of the opportunities provided by upcoming alignments).
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
<<The title of Gardner's essays, which are drawn from an output of nearly 60 years, comes from Lord Dunsany's The Laughter of the Gods: "A man is a small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders." Substitute cosmos for night, and one has the principle behind the contents-a recapitulation, often involving the recycling of already recycled writings, of Gardner's polymath productivity. Recreational wisdom, much of it culled from his columns in Scientific American and reviews in the New York Review of Books, emerges in every essay, but not every essay is for every reader. Many are absorbing, some idiosyncratic, others abstruse. His intellectual heroes are from a variety of pursuits and times: Lewis Carroll, Oz creator L. Frank Baum, philosopher William James, fantasist G.K. Chesterton, mathematician Roger Penrose. Gardner's doghouse is more crowded and includes educator Robert Hutchins and his "Great Books" missionary Mortimer Adler, Sigmund Freud for "an absence of empirical underpinning," Steven Spielberg for his "tooth fairy" Close Encounters of the Third Kind, T.S. Eliot for cramped thinking, Arthur Conan Doyle and dozens of other seemingly intelligent souls for succumbing to spiritualism and other pseudosciences and religious orthodoxies. Also unspared are supply-side economists such as Arthur Laffer, and literary cranks promoting alternative authors of Shakespeare's plays and grubbing for profundities in Finnegans Wake.
"My own opinion," he contends, "is that the gullibility of the public today makes citizens of the nineteenth century look like hard-nosed skeptics.">>
Love that post, Art! Sorry about mangling your quote a bit.
pferkul wrote:Any idea what this is on the horizon?
We had this discussion last time this image was run. I managed to find a daytime photo of a flamingo flying in front of either the same one or a similar one. Regardless of its actual purpose, it is an object which spins when wind blows through it. http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=219824#p219824
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
pferkul wrote:
Any idea what this is on the horizon?
We had this discussion last time this image was run. I managed to find a daytime photo of a flamingo flying in front of either the same one or a similar one. Regardless of its actual purpose, it is an object which spins when wind blows through it.
pferkul wrote:Any idea what this is on the horizon?
We had this discussion last time this image was run. I managed to find a daytime photo of a flamingo flying in front of either the same one or a similar one. Regardless of its actual purpose, it is an object which spins when wind blows through it. http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=219824#p219824
pferkul wrote:Any idea what this is on the horizon?
Chris Peterson wrote:Hard to say. Looks like a windmill, doesn't it?
rafaelCS wrote:Looks like an odd-looking wind generator
We had this discussion last time this image was run. I managed to find a daytime photo of a flamingo flying in front of either the same one or a similar one. Regardless of its actual purpose, it is an object which spins when wind blows through it. http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=219824#p219824
Indeed, but not a wind generator nor a windmill, it is a windpump of Sibiloa National Park run by Kenyan Wildlife Service, hence image was taken there. Clue: it is in the water.
I am a little surprised the the description of this picture failed to mention the "green flash". The photographer has captured the image at precisely the right moment to capture this fleeting phenomenon.
Gnuthad wrote:I am a little surprised the the description of this picture failed to mention the "green flash". The photographer has captured the image at precisely the right moment to capture this fleeting phenomenon.
The clouds are blocking the Sun, so no, that's not a green flash. Much more likely it is some kind of terrestrial light source.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
Gnuthad wrote:I am a little surprised the the description of this picture failed to mention the "green flash". The photographer has captured the image at precisely the right moment to capture this fleeting phenomenon.
This image was made long after sunset. I think that's a streetlight, shop, or little village.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Gnuthad wrote:
I am a little surprised the the description of this picture failed to mention the "green flash". The photographer has captured the image at precisely the right moment to capture this fleeting phenomenon.
This image was made long after sunset. I think that's a streetlight, shop, or little village.
http://thegreatgatsbysandm.blogspot.com/2011/05/green-light.html wrote:
<<To Gatsby, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents his dream, which is Daisy: “…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away…” The green light also represents society’s desire and the seeming impossibility of achieving the materialistic American Dream.>>
Night Hides the World
Fog 
