Beam me up! This amazing image of a solar pillar was sent to us by Rick Standkiewicz of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
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“The evening of June 10th, 2011, I was traveling west across northern Ontario on Highway #11, near the community of Hearst and it was like any other, until the Sun set and then what unfolded was like a scene from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Rick wrote, telling us about this photo. “It was both eerie and beautiful. Of course it was only a harmless solar pillar, but one of the most striking and colourful that I have ever seen. The contrast with the black clouds over the western horizon added greatly to the special effect. The solar pillar was redder than I have normally seen. Usually they tend to be a yellow, orange or pink. Clearly the longer wavelengths of the spectrum were showing themselves this evening.”
Rick provided the specs of the equipment he used: Camera: Canon 400D; Lense: Canon 18-200mm @ 24 & 90mm; ISO: 200; f/5.6; 1/60-1/80
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Yippee! This is the way I feel whenever I see the International Space Station passing overhead! Astrophotographer Pete Glastonbury from the UK posted this picture on my Facebook page when I mentioned what a great ISS pass I had just seen. In describing the image, Pete said, “My daughter Sammy suggested we use the trampoline to create the photo as a way to illustrate our desire to get into space.”
Lovely!
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Tom Gwilym from Renton, Washington captured this series of images of the International Space Station with a 12″ Meade LX200 telescope. The picture is amazing, but Tom explains that his method for getting all these images of the station is actually pretty simple.
“I’m not doing anything fancy to take these, just a $30 webcam and hand guiding the telescope while recording the video as an .AVI file. Then I sort through the 1,800 frames and pick out the good ones. Easy to go through and find them since they flash on the screen as the video is playing. I may have about 50 frames with the station, but then I save only the sharpest ones.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Here’s a photograph of Jupiter taken by Mindi Meeks from Navarre, Florida on July 3, 2011 at around 3 in the morning CST.
“My husband and I were enjoying a quiet evening on our screened-in porch when I noticed a bright star rising in the east. We determined that it was Jupiter, and it was such a lovely sight that I wanted to try to photograph it.”
Mindi captured this photo with a Nikon D5000 camera mounted on a standard tripod with the following settings: 55mm, 15.0s exposure, f/4.5, ISO 1000.
To see more of Mindi’s photos, you can check out her photo blog.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
On August 10, the Moon passed in front of the triple star system, Pi Sagitaurii star system. The even was captured by Efrain Morales Rivera from the Jaicoa Observatory in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. “An interesting event, capturing this triple star system being occulted by the Moon and 1 hour and 26 minutes later re-appearing on the bright side of the moon,” Rivera wrote to tell us.
He even created an animation of the stars “winking out"
An interesting event capturing this triple star system being occulted by the
moon and 1 hr 26 min later re-appearing on the bright side of the moon.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Guillermo Abramson of Bariloche, Argentina captured this stunning photo of the central region of the Milky Way and Venus over the Andes Mountains on October 24, 2008. Guillermo used a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi camera mounted on a Meade LX10 telescope and took this photo with the following settings: 18 mm, F/3.5, 120 sec, ISO 400.
Can’t get enough of Guillermo Abramson’s photos? You can check out his blog.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
A beautiful and colorful halo — a 22 degree ring — as seen on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, taken by 'Astrohans' on Flickr. Astrohans posted that circumhorizontal arc is also visible, and that the photo was taken on May 8, 2010 in Playa Blanca, using a Canon EOS 400D Digital.
Halos form when light from the Sun or Moon is refracted by ice crystals associated with thin, high-level clouds (like cirrostratus clouds). A 22 degree halo is a ring of light 22 degrees from the Sun (or Moon) and is the most common type of halo observed.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Who wouldn’t love to see this showcase of colors on a night sky? Definitely worth a click!
It was during a solar maximum in the mid-1990s when Tony Cellini took this nice photo of the Aurora Borelis in Bloomington, Illinois.
“This was one of most intense aurorae I’ve ever seen this far south and the image doesn’t beging to capture its extent. Even during a 1st quarter moon, the green tendrils were visible straight overhead, and the red coloring was very obvious to the naked eye which is unusual from this location.”
If you would like to know how he came up with this photo, Tony also mentioned the camera and settings he used.
“The camera used was a fully manual Pentax K-1000. The lens was a standard 50mm lens to which I threaded a fisheye “converter” that gave an almost 180 degree field of view.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
A stunning look at Jupiter in the night sky, from under a canopy of trees. “I took that exposure in Woodbury, CT on August 12, 2011 around 1:00 a,m.,” said photographer Matt Childs. “It is a combination of a couple different shots that I stacked together much like an HDR process. The camera I used was a Canon Rebel Xsi along with a 50mm lens. My observing locations are heavy with trees so its not uncommon for me to find ‘windows’ between branches or leaves that enable me to take a peek into the cosmos.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Wow! This was my initial reaction upon learning that a 12-year old took this very nice photo. Lara O’ Brien of Victoria, Australia took these sequence shots of the lunar eclipse that happened on June 16, 2011.
Lara won the “Junior” category of a national astrophotography competition exhibited at the Sydney Observatory.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
The entire Space Shuttle program became a part of history with the landing of Atlantis on July 21, 2011. It was sad to watch the missions come to an end. But for Ken Lord of Canada, it came as such a sweet goodbye. Here’s a photograph he took of the space shuttle Discovery as it passed in front of the Moon, with the International Space Station trailing behind. This was during Discovery’s last mission.
“I soon saw the ISS coming from the north-west, and realized much to my surprise that it would pass in front of the moon! So I took a couple of shots to try and get the camera settings close.”
Ken used a Canon EOS REBEL T1i set to 2.5 second exposure, ISO800, F5.6, 80mm.
“This shot was actually a test shot. By eye, I could not actually see Discovery. It was pure luck that I caught it in front of the moon with the ISS following. As they continued across the sky, the lighting conditions improved, getting away from the twilight and Vancouver’s light pollution, Discovery then became visible by eye.”
Check out more photos from Ken at his Flickr page.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
An ocean view doesn’t get much better than this, thanks to these amazing noctilucent clouds overhead. This picture was taken by James Adams on the morning of July 3rd, 2011.
“I was looking at the NE horizon from the beach at Hayle in Cornwall UK. At about 3.00am I saw a brightening, and as the rain clouds dissipated I saw the unmistakable glow of noctilucent clouds rising behind them. I used a telephoto lens to get a better view. Although in the distance from my perspective, they still made for an impressive sight.”
Noctilucent clouds are cloud-like phenomena also known as polar mesospheric clouds. They are made of water ice crystals which become visible from the ground when illuminated by sunlight.
James used a Canon 5D mkII with 100-400mm lens, ISO 1600, 8 to 20 seconds exposure.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
This is a photo of Comet Hartley 2 taken by Hens Zimmerman of the Netherlands prior to its close approach to Earth on October 9, 2010. Comet Hartley 2 is a small periodic comet with an orbital period of 6.46 years.
Here are some notes from Hens about the image:
“I used precise goto on my Celestron NexStar 5SE. I first found its exact coordinates using Voyager, my favorite OSX planetarium by Carinasoft.
“…My NexStar was of course already linked to GPS satellites and auto two star aligned to Polaris and Albireo. The NexStar computer suggested Mirfak (? Persei), which I centered in the eyepiece. It then instantly slewed to Hartley 2 which was dead center in the eyepiece.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
This photo of the Pacman Nebula came from a series of photos captured by Dave Halliday of Ottawa, Canada on separate nights of August 2011.
The Pacman Nebula, also known as NGC 281, is a large cloud of gas and ionized gas of glowing low density where stars formed. It’s located in the constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Perseus Spiral Arm. It’s called Pacman nebula obviously because it looks like the Pacman game character.
“The scope is a TeleVue Genesis 101mm (aperture) refractor (focal length 500mm) (f/5). The image is done with narrowband filters. Ha exposures are 6×20 minutes with a Baader 9nm filter. The OIII is 4×25 minutes with a Astrodon 3nm filter and the SII is 815 minutes (binned 2×2) with a 3nm Astrodon filter. Camera is a SBIG ST10 monochrome CCD at minus 20C.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Check out this photograph of an occultation of Venus by the Moon, taken by Kevin Jung. An occultation occurs when one object passes in front of another from our vantage point. A solar eclipse is an example of an occultation, but here we’ve got the Moon passing in front of Venus.
“Being an avid observer for many years, I am always on the lookout for things to observe that are “special.” The occultation of Venus by the Moon on a cool morning in April 2009 was just such an event.”
Kevin captured this great shot on April 22, 2009 using a Canon EOS 40D attached to a refractor mounted on a 16-inch SCT with an equatorial mount which they have at their observatory.
“I periodically took photographs and watching intently as the Moon’s limb approached Venus. As the moment of “contact” was approaching, I began taking images every few seconds, watching the “horn” of the planet Venus move ever closer to the limb of the moon. Just as I saw it touch the Moon’s limb, I fired a burst of a few frames to make sure I captured the image I wanted. I actually continued to shoot photos until Venus completely disappeared behind the Moon.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Rick Johnson was able to capture a photo of the new supernova that has just shown up a few nights ago on August 24, 2011 – the same supernova which caused a whole bunch of excitement to the entire astronomical community.
Called the SN PTF 11kly, the new Type Ia supernova was spotted by Caltech’s Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey in the M101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy. SN PTF 11kly is located 21 million light years away. You can see the supernova marked in the southern part of the galaxy.
Rick took this photo using a 14″ LX200R telescope @ f/10, L=4×10′ RGB=2×10′, STL-11000XM camera and Paramount ME.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
David Liddicott was looking at photos to upload on Flickr when he unexpectedly saw these two photos which he first thought were duplicates.
These photos of the Moon were taken two years apart on May 12, 2005 and May 20, 2007, respectively. Upon examining the photos, he realized that they’re almost in the same phase.
“On closer examination I could see that the libration of the moon meant that the features in the images were not quite in the same place, so I created the composite image and checked up using a planatarium program what the exact phases were.”
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Jamie Ball captured this photo of planet Jupiter along with its 3 moons – Ganymede, Io and Europa (left to right) on August 12, 2011.
The camera Jamie used is a Canon digital rebel T1i (500d) attached to a 6″ Maksutov-Cassegrain on an NEQ6 mount. The image was then stacked in the program ‘Nebulosity’ and final processing was done in ‘Pixinsight’.
Jamie provided us with the camera specs: 80 x 1/40sec, ISO 400, f/12.5.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
As I was browsing the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum for photos to publish here at Universe Today, I came across this photo of the Copernicus Moon crater.
Copernicus is a lunar impact crater which can be found in the eastern Oceanus Procellarum. The crater is approximately 93 kilometers in diameter and 3.8 kilometers deep.
The photo is a great an example of an optical illusion where it looks like a mound or a hill at first sight. But when you turn the picture upside down, it now looks like a crater. Be careful turning your computer upside down.
This photo was submitted to us by Lupuvictor. He took the photo using his 8” reflector telescope.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
John Chumack captured this photo of the blazing Sun during a solar prominence that occurred on August 21, 2011. Also in the photo is the Sunspot 1271.
A solar prominence is a feature of the Sun characterized by huge and bright loops extending outwards from the Sun’s surface. But don’t be fooled. It may look burning hot but it actually consists of a much cooler plasma compared to the solar surface. Sunspots are another solar phenomenon where intense magnetic activity causes visible dark spots to appear on the Sun’s photosphere.
John took this photo using a Lunt 60mm/50F H-Alpha Solar Scope with a DMK firwire camera and 2x barlow lens and combined 693 frames.
Check out John’s website for more amazing astrophotography.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
For the observing weekend warriors, the last few days have been a very exciting time. Not only have we been treated to a supernova event in Messier 101, but we’ve had the opportunity to watch Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd silently slip by Messier 71! Wish you were there? Step inside and you can be…
A few days ago we brought you a “live” broadcast of the comet thanks to Bareket Observatory. Thousands of UT readers had the opportunity to view and enjoy for a full six hours and – thankfully – the weather cooperated. Want to see the results? You can check out the comet video here.
On Friday, August 27th, comet Garradd had another “picturesque” moment… It swept by an often over-looked Messier object – M71.
But it didn’t pass by John Chumack!
At a distance of 1.402 AU from Earth and 2.193 AU from the Sun, Comet Garradd continues to brighten and will reach perihelion on December 23, 2011. That’s quite a difference from M71′s 13,000 light year distance! Right now the two are almost of identical magnitude, and while the comet has moved on, you can still find M71 in the constellation of Sagitta at Right Ascension: 19 : 53.8 (h:m) – Declination: +18 : 47 (deg:m).
And this isn’t the first time a comet has crossed paths with this star cluster. As a matter of fact, it was in looking for a comet that this bundle of stars was discovered by Pierre Mechain and dutifully and correctly logged by Charles Messier on October 4, 1780. Said Messier, “Nebula discovered by M. Mechain on June 28, 1780, between the stars Gamma and Delta Sagittae. On October 4 following, M. Messier looked for it: its light is very faint and it contains no star; the least light makes it disappear. It is situated about 4 degrees below [south of] that which M. Messier discovered in Vulpecula. See No. 27. He reported it on the Chart of the Comet of 1779.”
Imagine how impressed Mechain and Messier would be if they could see what John did 222 years later! He used a QHY8 CCD Camera and compressed the two and half hour video into the segment you see above. It was done at his Yellow Springs, Ohio observatory and shot through his 16″ homemade telescope.
Now that’s cookin’!
Many thanks to John Chumack of Galactic Images for sharing this incredible video with us!
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
Even though the Moon is one of the most photographed celestial bodies, it’s still tricky to get it right. Anyone with a camera can actually point and shoot the Moon, but this photo is one of the best amateur photographs of the Moon I’ve seen so far.
This high-definition photo of the Moon was captured by Denis Vida of Valpovo, Croatia. It’s composed of 27 individual pieces with 700 stacked frames stitched together as one photo.
Denis used a Celestron C8 telescope and Philips TouCam II Pro. The photos were processed using Registax 5 and Photoshop.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
