Starship Asterisk*

These pictures are super competitors for votes, based on the close tally right now. I think my votes here recognize how fast these days we see more of and farther into our solar system: the Vesta picture was published a few days after Dawn reached it, and we look at the newly discovered moon of Plut...

The Neptune pictures, links and explanation present a world more fantastic than the ones sci-fi portrays: the manner of discovery, once around the Sun since discovery, the fastest winds we have observed (1500 mph), forty year long springtime, those enchanting colors, the clouds and storms...I had to...

My votes this time went first, - to the polar ring galaxies, because I see in APOD a description of these intriguing objects in 1999--there may be newer ones I am unaware of.... The Cornell U. link explaining PRGs says, there is a new catalog, and APOD astronomers can give us a learned explanation o...

biddie67, the link below has a short explanation for a general audience; see if in it you can find what you are looking for:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question224.htm

howstuffworks: "How are astronomers able to measure how far away a star is?"

'Monster' driving cosmic beacon BBC News | Science & Environment | Jonathan Amos | 2011 Jun 30 Yesterday, the BBC reported, The newly identified quasar has been designated ULAS J1120+0641. It is not the most distant object seen in the Universe - that record probably goes to a gamma-ray burst (G...

I think one of two APODs would be representative of this week: the eclipsed moon showing reflected light from the Earth and the last roll out of the Space Shuttle. That beautiful and otherworldly eclipsed Moon with blue and reddish hues is intriguing enough, and demonstrates one way in which the Ear...

Thank you for your reply, owlice. I am glad to hear of your selection. As the weeks go by, I notice practice at voting does not make picking two APODs any easier. It does seem, however, one may be inadvertently selecting from the minute one first sees an APOD.

This photograph shows at top the intense blue sky often seen in Buenos Aires. Last year, while there in March and also in December, on most days, the sky in Buenos Aires often appeared of a noticeable darker, deeper blue than skies normally are at the Northern latitude where I spend most of my time....

One cannot compare a picture to any other for this week, each of these APODs represents marvelous things. My first choice was the Crab Nebula and the second was the Supernova sonata, although the Shuttle plume and the Messier marathon make voting difficult. The Crab nebula and its supernova have bee...

Beyond compensation, there are intangible benefits to granting permission, especially if done, as stated, relatively soon after the image is published elsewhere. In my opinion, a photographer gains a certain prestige for being featured in this forum, which will tend to increase the merit of having t...

It is difficult to decide among the photographic accomplishments shown here. The time lapse of clouds in Tenerife lets us see natural processes as if we were observing otherworldly events, and the music renders these events romantic. I think the emotive content of this APOD captures the way we respo...

From this selection, Enceladus and Gravity Probe B are remarkable. The view of Saturn's moon...it lets one be transported to the spot, as it were. And from a larger perspective, Enceladus' environment has unique implications for us, in the evidence pointing to subterranean oceans, the potential for ...

...that is a compelling story. The Australian contestants' perspective, that the picture may lead to new awareness, I think they are right on that point. When first reading their story, which mentions our galaxy and Andromeda will perform similar maneuvers, I particularly liked that this picture giv...

Voting was difficult because all seven pictures are beautiful. But two APODS stood out, because in addition to being beautiful, these two are tied to landmark events in astronomical study and science: the galaxies of Arp 273, celebrating 21 years of Hubble in orbit, and Tycho's supernova remnant.