APOD: Dawn of the Dish (2012 Jul 19)

APOD Robot · Post by **APOD Robot** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:06 am

Dawn of the Dish

Explanation: Wandering planets Venus and Jupiter were joined by an old crescent Moon near the eastern horizon on July 15. This serene southern skyview of the much anticipated predawn conjunction includes the lovely Pleiades star cluster and bright stars Aldebaran and Betelgeuse in the celestial lineup. For help identifying the stars and constellations, just slide your cursor over the image. Of course, the radio telescope in the foreground is the Parkes 64 meter dish of New South Wales, Australia. Known for its exploration of the distant Universe at radio wavelengths, the large, steerable antenna is also famous for its superior lunar television reception. On July 21, 1969 the dish received broadcasts from the Moon that allowed denizens of planet Earth to watch the Apollo 11 moonwalk.

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Astro0 · Post by **Astro0** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:48 am

Nice picture! Great antenna! Shame the caption and links perpetuate the myth about its role in Apollo XI TV coverage. NASA's Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Canberra, ACT, Australia received and relayed to the world the first historic TV images of Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the Moon. The Parkes Radio Telescope came in a little bit later. More here http://bit.ly/1kKSP

Boomer12k · Post by **Boomer12k** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:17 am

Weird from my point of view as a Northern Hemishere-or....that the constellations are upside down....

:---[===] *

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:01 am

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

.

Astro0 wrote:
Nice picture! Great antenna! Shame the caption and links perpetuate the myth about its role in Apollo XI TV coverage. NASA's Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Canberra, ACT, Australia received and relayed to the world the first historic TV images of Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the Moon. The Parkes Radio Telescope came in a little bit later. More here http://bit.ly/1kKSP

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:02 pm

Beautiful picture! Fascinating colors. Note that in comparison with the artificial illumination, all the stars appear either white or bluish (there may be a faint hint of yellow in Antares and Aldebaran).

Also, a certain degree of brightness appears to favor the appearance of blue color in the stars. The Pleiades appear to have exactly eight blue sisters!

But the stars of Orion's Belt are strangely white - well, they often look white to me, too!

This picture gives us a hint as to why the Earth is "the blue planet". The morning sky is blue, of course!

Ann

Moonlady · Post by **Moonlady** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:20 pm

Boomer12k wrote:Weird from my point of view as a Northern Hemishere-or....that the constellations are upside down....

:---[===] *

Orion can perform a headstand

Hmm it must be in warmer regions there, because it's all green in the picture and seems not too cold

Or is this picture taken when it was another time of year?

I love Apod Dishes pictures! Here make your own dish:

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:36 pm

I like this APOD!

FloridaMike · Post by **FloridaMike** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:09 pm

Boomer12k wrote:Weird from my point of view as a Northern Hemishere-or....that the constellations are upside down....

:---[===] *

It's not the constellations that are upside down, it's the Australians! HA!

Joe Stieber · Post by **Joe Stieber** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:01 pm

Ann wrote:Beautiful picture! Fascinating colors. Note that in comparison with the artificial illumination, all the stars appear either white or bluish (there may be a faint hint of yellow in Antares and Aldebaran).

Keep in mind the photograper may have shifted the color balance a bit towards blue to give this scenic picture a more pleasing appearance.

I'm also guessing that you meant to say Betelgeuse and Aldebaran.

Joe

kreigor426 · Post by **kreigor426** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:21 pm

i reside @ 38n 121w, and according to stellarium w/ the moon at that position, it was 7/14/2012 _0600 local...
on the 15th, the moons' position was b/tween jupiter and venus...
unless i'm not taking into consideration the Int date line...
why the diff in positions???

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:33 pm

Joe Stieber wrote:
Ann wrote:Beautiful picture! Fascinating colors. Note that in comparison with the artificial illumination, all the stars appear either white or bluish (there may be a faint hint of yellow in Antares and Aldebaran).
Keep in mind the photograper may have shifted the color balance a bit towards blue to give this scenic picture a more pleasing appearance.

I'm also guessing that you meant to say Betelgeuse and Aldebaran.

Joe

Oooooops!!!!

Thanks, Joe!

Ann

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:55 pm

kreigor426 wrote:
i reside @ 38n 121w, and according to stellarium w/ the moon at that position, it was 7/14/2012 _0600 local...
on the 15th, the moons' position was b/tween jupiter and venus...
unless i'm not taking into consideration the Int date line...

You're not taking into consideration the Int date line.

Case · Post by **Case** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:35 pm

For entertainment, a bit of history and Aussie culture, you all should see the 2000 movie about the people involved in operating The Dish back in 1969. Highly recommended.

kreigor426 · Post by **kreigor426** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:53 pm

neufer wrote:
kreigor426 wrote:
i reside @ 38n 121w, and according to stellarium w/ the moon at that position, it was 7/14/2012 _0600 local...
on the 15th, the moons' position was b/tween jupiter and venus...
unless i'm not taking into consideration the Int date line...

You're not taking into consideration the Int date line.

Thank you for the observation... i knew it had to be something as simple as that... tnx agn... kreigor426

Anthony Barreiro · Post by **Anthony Barreiro** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:25 pm

Moonlady wrote:... Hmm it must be in warmer regions there, because it's all green in the picture and seems not too cold
Or is this picture taken when it was another time of year?

It's about a month after winter solstice in Australia right now. New South Wales has a fairly arid climate, with hot summers and cool winters. According to weatherzone.com.au average high and low temperatures in Parkes during July are 14 and 4 degrees celsius, respectively, and the area gets about +/- 50 mm of rain every month of the year. Plants from such climates generally remain green throughout the winter.

StarCuriousAero · Post by **StarCuriousAero** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 9:13 pm

Love how blue-green my favorite set of sisters look in this lovely image...

neptunium · Post by **neptunium** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:43 pm

FloridaMike wrote:It's not the constellations that are upside down, it's the Australians! HA!

And we're standing sideways.

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:01 pm

Lambda Tauri is the bright star hovering high above The Dish
(at the apex of a 45º/45º/90º right triangle with the Pleiades & Venus).

About ²/₃ rds of the way between the Moon and Lambda Tauri
Vesta (with its own Dawn) can just be seen in the blowup image.

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspac ... 1&showac=1

Vesta is almost in the identical sky location that Ceres was located a fortnight ago

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspac ... 1&showac=1

NoelC · Post by **NoelC** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:33 pm

How did I miss this before?

A wonderful, interesting picture of an uncommon conjunction. Congratulations, Alex!

-Noel

Starship Asterisk*

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