Starship Asterisk*

Nitpicker wrote:... Not sure what a base-to-peak ratio is.

Base to peak ratios are influenced by the material composition of the feature and gravitational constant of the moon or planet it is located on.

BDanielMayfield wrote:Limb brightening is caused by limb darkening?

APOD Robot wrote: wrote:...Hydrogen Alpha, inverted, and false colored...

Emphasis added...

Holy photons, Batman. The Universe is practically made of shadows. Shadows, what dark matter is all about. :wink: Turns out dark matter is just one big bug in the system where a mass object continues invisibly on its trajectory in place of were a photon was absorbed / ended. Biggest memory leak eve...

Okay, speaking of math, and the Dawn spacecraft, I have a very basic orbital mechanics question. Actually, I'm not wanting the equations, just the qualitative description. Let's say I'm the Dawn spacecraft and I'm orbiting the Sun, a little ways in front of or behind the Earth, but in an identical ...

Another beautiful image, thank you Robert Fields. It sort of brings you toe to toe with the vastness of it all. ...Wonder how much glade or endust would be required to clear all that dust??? :lol2: :lol2: There must have been one heck of an environmental impact study to gain approval for releasing t...

The artist seems to be depicting the invisible gravity well of the black hole as opposed to an actual visual representation. The eye is poised dangerously close to certain destruction in this image. Be careful, you may fall in. The image invokes the “feeling” of being near a black hole if not the ac...

Oh, I totally get doing this and have been itching to do something like this for a while. Creating a solar calendar on the north wall of our foyer was vetoed by the wife so… The photographer’s web site says fewer people have captured the analemma than have walked on the moon. That is a bonus. But ju...

Anthony Barreiro wrote:If this were an art theory discussion board and I were the moderator, my finger would be itching over the delete button.

WAIT! I thought this was an art discussion forum, my bad!

Chris Peterson wrote:

FloridaMike wrote:The Mona Lisa and Flight of the Valkyries is just our feeble attempt to interpret nature in different ways?

Yup.

I think you are confusing one of the things that art does with a definition of what art is.

It took a second for my brain to adjust to the image, but what a unique perspective! I love it how we can extract art from the cold logic of science and technology. Humans are great. "Cold logic of science and technology"? Rubbish. More like spirit warming beauty. Art is just our feeble a...

It took a second for my brain to adjust to the image, but what a unique perspective! I love it how we can extract art from the cold logic of science and technology. Humans are great.

If this holds up, it's HUGE!!! :shock: :D :clap: Huge. And not so much. I find it interesting, but not all that exciting... I guess because there is so much indirect evidence, that this new information doesn't really change much. Huge was the discovery of the CMB. Huge is any discovery that changes...

From an astrological perspective, Harrison Schmitt, as a Cancer born July 3rd, 1935, is the only human so far to set foot on his ruling planet - the Moon. First, the Moon is not a planet. Then, why do you, apparently an astrologer, come to an astronomer's messageboard, if not to proslytise? I fear ...

I love the way these static images reveal the dynamic nature of the universe.

I propose the name "Heaven and Hell Nebula" for this region of space. The bright blue reflection nebula exudes the beauty and glory associated with Heaven. The juxtaposition with the dark smoky swirling knot complete with orange embers evokes a dark and foreboding place.

I never saw this before. A complete address with the final quote 'planet Earth'. May be we need to included that in our address and possibly another final quote: 'Milky Way galaxy'... You skipped a few addresses, most notably the star system. For the moment and foreseeable future the address is ful...

I just pulled up the comments on the APOD Facebook page for the first time today. I had to immediately come here to say thank you to everyone who contributes.

jsanchezjr wrote:.... we also know without a doubt how is our galaxy when we can watched from the outside, sure, if ever possible.

Yes, we are awaiting the return of V'ger to confirm this.

To a tumbleweed, the entire universe tumbles....

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_140205.jpg NGC 2683: Edge On Spiral Galaxy Explanation: Does spiral galaxy NGC 2683 have a bar across its center? Being so nearly like our own barred Milky Way Galaxy , one might guess it has. Being so nearly edge-on, however, it is hard to tell ..... If we can ...

There's a natural tendency to think of those snow covered poles as being very similar to the 30' to 40' towers we use today, but it may not be so. I recall, back in the 50s and 60s, driving along rural roads where the poles were only about 12' high. That's still quite a drift, but not as dramatic a...

932 KB image

Lunar Libration

The northern tidal tail seems positively chock full of galaxy shaped objects. Some appear edge on, some face on in appearance. These objects seem to be in much greater proportion here than in the surrounding space. Is this attributed to a different data set in this area? What are we looking at here?...

http://i.imgur.com/n2PEyWw.gif Animated gif of the sunset on Jan 5 from my backyard in Brisbane, seen through smoky bushfire haze. Great work. I'd love to do something like that. Is the reddened tree shadow the most distant of three trees between the camera and the sun? The red effect is unexpected.

The approaching geomagnetic storm is predicted to be a “G3” in intensity. Does anyone have an idea on what the intensity would have to be for us to see auroras as far south as Florida?