Starship Asterisk*

Night Hides the World

Explanation: Stars come out as evening twilight fades in this serene skyscape following the Persian proverb "Night hides the world, but reveals a universe." In the scene from last November, the Sun is setting over northern Kenya and the night will soon hide the shores of Lake Turkana, home to many Nile crocodiles. That region is also known as the cradle of humankind for its abundance of hominid fossils. A brilliant Venus, then the world's evening star, dominates the starry night above. But also revealed are faint stars, cosmic dust clouds, and glowing nebulae along the graceful arc of our own Milky Way galaxy.

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You've outdone yourself with this one, Babak.

Gorgeous picture, thank you!

Question: On the horizon, very slightly left of center, is a round object on a pillar. What is it?

Looks like a tree on a thin strip of land that goes out into the water.

::EDIT:: WRONG!!!!

tarantoga wrote:Gorgeous picture, thank you!

Question: On the horizon, very slightly left of center, is a round object on a pillar. What is it?

I think it is a wind turbine. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Turkana#Wind_power

Looks like an amazing place. (The galactic background is pretty, too.) A bit to the left of the turbine is a green glow on the horizon. I assume this is from a village near the far shore?

I'm pretty sure that's a windmill, as opposed to a wind turbine. Possibly the same one as in the background here:

Flamingo and Windmill by NYC Comets, on Flickr

More accurate to call it a wind turbine. I imagine it is for generating electricity, rather than milling grain in the middle of the lake. Edit: could also be a windpump.

You don't know what it's doing and neither do I.

I going with windpump (aka windmill). Final answer.

well, looks like i sit corrected. I cranked up the screen magnification to 400, and it is one of those wind thingies.

Very Pretty!!!

:---[===] *

What a lovely picture! There are Earthly and celestial clouds, and light from distant stars and fading evening light from our own Sol. And there is even our sister planet, gorgeous Aphrodite - I mean, Venus - who, however, looks prettier from a distance than up close.

Ann

Takes me right back! I had an experiment on a National Science Foundation total solar eclipse expedition to Lake Turkana. It was a long drive in "combis" (VW buses) from Nairobi. When we arrived at the lodge, a great dinner of Nile perch! For breakfast next day, you guessed it, Nile perch. For the three weeks we were there, Nile perch every meal. Got to go fishing in the lake: six of us caught 700 pounds of Nile perch in a few hours. The eclipse was great, and I got publishable data on shadowbands (very impressive). It is so long ago...can I remember? The Turkana people were on one side of the lake, another tribe on the other side, and the El Molo right where we were. Only the El Molo ate fish! Some among us had horrors about snakes in the lodge, but I never saw one. Those were the days, my friend....

Ann wrote:What a lovely picture! There are Earthly and celestial clouds, and light from distant stars and fading evening light from our own Sol. And there is even our sister planet, gorgeous Aphrodite - I mean, Venus - who, however, looks prettier from a distance than up close.

Ann

I disagree Ann, to be in the heart of Venus is more beautiful than from a distance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QipHzWqc9OU

It also looks as if the shot captured the Green Flash?
What else could that be?

fritzstumpges wrote:
It also looks as if the shot captured the Green Flash?

What else could that be?

The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 06#p219384

fritzstumpges wrote:It also looks as if the shot captured the Green Flash?
What else could that be?

The Sun is well below the horizon, so it can't be a green flash. Just a green light in the distance, I think.

This shot really makes me feel immersed in our galaxy. Is that the central bulge of the Milky Way just left of Venus?

Coil_Smoke wrote:
Is that the central bulge of the Milky Way just left of Venus?

Venus essential moves through the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces

The Milky Way passes through these constellation: Cygnus, Lacerta, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Auriga, Orion/Gemini, Monoceros, Canis Major, Puppus, Vela, Carina, Crux/Musca, Centaurus, Circinus, Lupus/Norma, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Scutum, Aquila, Sagitta, Vulpecula

The only matches are Scorpius, Sagittarius & Gemini.

http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html

Gee, one could almost get a bit dizzy by holding down the look right or left control on the interactive link you posted, neufer.
Wheeeee round and round and round and round and round and round and round and ... wlel uyo nokw.