Starship Asterisk*

How 'bout that pair of Milky Way stars just "below" the center. I wonder if we know whether those are companions or if they just happen to line up closely in our line of sight.

I counted 103,041 stars.

This is actually pretty interesting. From far away, Jupiter looks like this: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1804/JupiterOpal_HubbleMasztalerz_1880.jpg But if you got real close, the "horizontal lines" would appear to be bending up or down at the outer edges. But you could never photograp...

Gorgeous image! 8-) Why does it appear like there is a 'bubble' around Alnilam..? Is it possibly a 'side effect' of processing? Or perhaps it's noticeable in other images of that star? *offtolookforcomparisons* Alnilam is the bright star closer to the upper left corner of the photo. Also, Alnitak, ...

Venus would have also been in crescent phase. This would have been good to mention, though you can't see it at this magnification and exposure. Too bad, that would look cool if you could!

How do we know for sure that the bright star in the "center" is really the source star and not a background star that just happens to appear in the center? I can't imagine we can estimate distances accurately enough to know that for certain.