Starship Asterisk*

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This interpretation of a previous Picture of the Week was created by astronomer Alex Parker. It captures some of the essence of Paranal Observatory — a little world where astronomers leave the Earth behind and travel to the stars... metaphorically at least.

The observatory lies deep in the barren Atacama Desert, which can really seem like an alien environment. It is far from civilisation and modern life, a place where visiting astronomers spend their nights gazing out at the wonders of the Universe using ESO’s flagship facility, the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The VLT is the reason why Cerro Paranal was transformed from just another mountain in the Chilean Andes into a base for world-class scientific research.

When night falls over Paranal, and the night sky is aglow with stars, nebulae and nearby galaxies, the unearthly view emphasises our place in the Universe — as Alex Parker so creatively demonstrates — floating through space on a tiny chunk of rock.

Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky/A. H. Parker

tytower1 wrote:When I look out my bedroom window the Southern Cross appears below the pointers when in the position shown in this picture .I am in Australia looking south but this should not make any difference so whats going on ?

Is someone leg pulling or has there been an image reversal or something?

geckzilla wrote:Maybe the exposure times are not constant across the image. Would the left side be given a longer exposure to make the zodiacal light more obvious?

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:Venus must have been much brighter than the moon.

It's complicated. "Brightness" can have many different meanings. In terms of intensity per unit area, Venus was certainly brighter. Indeed, it is brighter than an uneclipsed full Moon. But in terms of total brightness, even the eclipsed Moon was probably brighter (although not necessarily... I didn't do the calculation). This is further complicated by the way in which cameras capture images, and how point sources (or near point sources) are different from extended sources.

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A total eclipse of the Moon is an impressive spectacle. But it also provides another viewing opportunity: a dark, moonlight-free starry sky. At Cerro Paranal in the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of the most remote places in the world, the distance from sources of light pollution makes the night sky all the more remarkable during a total lunar eclipse.

This panoramic photo, taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky, shows the view of the starry sky from the site of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro Paranal during the total lunar eclipse of 21 December 2010. The reddish disc of the Moon is seen on the right of the image, while the Milky Way arches across the heavens in all its beauty. Another faint glow of light is also visible, surrounding the brilliant planet Venus in the bottom left corner of the picture. This phenomenon, known as zodiacal light, is produced by sunlight reflecting off dust in the plane of the planets. It is so faint that it’s normally obscured by moonlight or light pollution.

During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow blocks direct sunlight from the Moon. The Moon is still visible, red in colour because only light rays at the red end of the spectrum are able to reach the Moon after being redirected through the Earth’s atmosphere (the blue and green light rays are scattered much more strongly).

Interestingly the Moon, which appears above one of VLT’s Unit Telescopes (UT2), was being observed by UT1 that night. UT1 and UT2 are also known as Antu (meaning The Sun in Mapudungun, one of Chile’s native languages) and Kueyen (The Moon), respectively.

Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky

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geckzilla wrote:Venus must have been much brighter than the moon.

kshiarella wrote:amazing photo! But that eclipsed moon looks tiny relative to Venus.