Starship Asterisk*

The "began operation in 1410" link goes to an interesting timeline summary of this clock. There is mention of an error made in the history of this clock in 1490. The error was discovered in the 17th century. That discovery was then lost until 1962. Almost 500 years to get an error set righ...

The "5,000 light-years" link in today's Explanation leads to an interesting Atlas of the Universe website. The website shows it was last updated in 2006, still interesting though.

+1

Chris/heehaw: thanks for the replies.

Brian

The LMC looks quite impressive in this picture. Does the human eye see just a smudge in the sky or something more?

Just wonderful, especially the newer version. THANKS!

Here in Amarillo we had about a 78% partial eclipse along with high, broken clouds. I took a few pictures of our neighborhood street before and during the eclipse. Due to the cloud movement, the street picture taken during the maximum eclipse is brighter than one ten minutes or so before the maximum...

I like the "uncompressed" version of the today's picture better.

Ann, thanks for the comments and pictures!

Brian

This is the first I have heard of polar ring galaxies or seen a picture. I have been checking APOD pretty much daily since 2002 or so. Don't know how I missed them for so long. Quite spectacular.

" small, faint Pluto's position was not covered. "

Pluto left out of the family portrait, then kicked out of the planet family a decade or so later.

Brian

what a dance.

Sure looks like a galaxy going down the drain!

+1 Spectacular galaxy!

"Ann wrote
I think the Flaming Star Nebula pretty much is the bow shock."

thanks for the info. The Flaming Star Nebula does look like the bow shock in your picture.

Brian

Is there a "bow shock wave" with AE Aurigae? Other articles indicate these speedy stars produce them if there is material in the way. I do not see it, but maybe I am missing it.

Any idea which way the star is moving in this picture (left, right, up, down, in out?)

Interesting links - space winds, ionizing radiation symbol, history and future of universe, cows, etc.

alter-ego: Thanks for the Launch Profile info.

APOD wrote: "At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across." APOD wrote: " some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552." Ann wrote: " According to Principal Galaxy Catalog, N...

Reading some of the links indicate Eta Carinae is one busy star (or binary).

Such a tiny dot. Based on diameters, something the size of the Earth at the same view would only be 2 1/2 times this tiny dot. Not much bigger.

Yes. don't know how many times, but I never get tired of it. Poll closed and its only 8 am Sunday???

@Editor : Link in my APOD still pointing to April 13th as reported above.

The "result will be a merger" link has some interesting info about mergers. Only about five pages long, but filled with explanations, graphs, and pictures.

Ok, so what is the difference between atmospheric 'gravity waves' and atmospheric turbulence? From the "gravity wave" link in APOD: "Gravity wave From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Not to be confused with gravitational waves." and continues with a discussion of gravity waves....