Explanation: Storm clouds do sometimes come to Chile's Atacama desert, known as the driest place on Earth. These washed through the night sky just last month during the winter season, captured in this panoramic view. Drifting between are cosmic clouds more welcome by the region's astronomical residents though, including dark dust clouds in silhouette against the crowded starfields and nebulae of the central Milky Way. Below and right of center lies the Large Magellanic Cloud, appropriately named for its appearance in starry southern skies. City lights about 200 kilometers distant still glow along the horizon at the right, while bright star Canopus shines above them in the cloudy sky.
Whoa! Looks like a big reflective kind of orb reflecting part of the Milky Way back at us. Must be that nibiru thingie.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 4:48 am
by Ann
Dust, dust everywhere. As in heaven, so it is on Earth.
Ann
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:37 am
by Boomer12k
Still for a desolate place a beautiful night. And the sky looks so clear...with lots of interesting things to look at....before and after the clouds pass....
:---[===] *
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:53 am
by RedFishBlueFish
Gasp.
Amazing - can anyone estimate the field of view, 180 I am thinking.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:55 am
by deathfleer
central milky way? Is it where the dark core is?
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 12:10 pm
by neufer
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
deathfleer wrote:
central milky way? Is it where the dark core is?
Urban light pollution appears to be a global problem. Forty years ago, it was easy to find dark places for watching comets and other celestial wonders near Tucson, AZ. Probably why they built so many telescopes on Kitt Peak. Even then, however, you could see the glow from Phoenix a hundred miles to the north. These days you have to use a black-felt-lined tube to photograph anything overhead, former dark places are now filled with brightly-lit strip malls. When you are up against those with sufficient wealth to ensure a congress-critter's election, it is difficult to get anyone in office to notice the loss of a valuable asset like dark skies. There are strip-mall inhabitants trying to get zoning ordinance waivers so they can leave their neon signs lit well into the night. Would that there were dark skies once again.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 3:52 pm
by Chris Peterson
Psnarf wrote::cry: Urban light pollution appears to be a global problem. Forty years ago, it was easy to find dark places for watching comets and other celestial wonders near Tucson, AZ. Probably why they built so many telescopes on Kitt Peak. Even then, however, you could see the glow from Phoenix a hundred miles to the north. These days you have to use a black-felt-lined tube to photograph anything overhead, former dark places are now filled with brightly-lit strip malls. When you are up against those with sufficient wealth to ensure a congress-critter's election, it is difficult to get anyone in office to notice the loss of a valuable asset like dark skies. There are strip-mall inhabitants trying to get zoning ordinance waivers so they can leave their neon signs lit well into the night. Would that there were dark skies once again.
True. Nevertheless, there remain many places on Earth where the astronomically interesting part of the sky (above 30° or so altitude) is essentially as dark as skies on Earth can get (I'm lucky enough to live in such a place, with the nearest light pollution source 40 miles away- enough to make a low light dome, but not to significantly impact my overhead sky).
I think it will be a while before we see any strip malls in the Atacama!
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 4:17 pm
by Beyond
neufer wrote:
biddie67 wrote:
I'd love to visit this place ~~ are there any tour groups that travel here?
$18,000 US Well, it does include hot drinks, and a 10 minute bus ride. But one also has to dress very warmly, so one doesn't freeze their 7th planet off.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 4:29 pm
by geckzilla
Beyond wrote:
neufer wrote:
biddie67 wrote:
I'd love to visit this place ~~ are there any tour groups that travel here?
$18,000 US Well, it does include hot drinks, and a 10 minute bus ride. But one also has to dress very warmly, so one doesn't freeze their 7th planet off.
Hmm... this is what it says-->Price: $18,000 per person ( USD36ą depending on exchange rate ), including transportation and hot drinks.
There's no mention that "$18,000 per person is in Chilean money.
But $36 US is a good deal for expanding your mind and shrinking your 7th planet part.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:22 pm
by geckzilla
$ is the symbol for the Chilean Peso. It's implied in the parentheses that the amount of $18,000 is not in USD. I'm not sure what the ą is doing there, though.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:39 pm
by Beyond
geckzilla wrote:$ is the symbol for the Chilean Peso. It's implied in the parentheses that the amount of $18,000 is not in USD. I'm not sure what the ą is doing there, though.
Well, IMHO, they could have worded it a lot better. $ is also the symbol for US dollars.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:49 pm
by Chris Peterson
Beyond wrote:
geckzilla wrote:$ is the symbol for the Chilean Peso. It's implied in the parentheses that the amount of $18,000 is not in USD. I'm not sure what the ą is doing there, though.
Well, IMHO, they could have worded it a lot better. $ is also the symbol for US dollars.
That symbol is used for a number of different currencies. I don't see that it could have been made much clearer, since the conversion to US dollars was given explicitly as part of the same sentence! Anytime we are on an obviously foreign site, we should assume currency values are in the local denomination, unless told otherwise.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:53 pm
by neufer
Chris Peterson wrote:
Anytime we are on an obviously foreign site, we should assume currency values are in the local denomination, unless told otherwise.
This has to be one of the most beautiful earth - sky compositions ever made. Thank you.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:20 pm
by Beyond
Chris Peterson wrote:
Beyond wrote:
geckzilla wrote:$ is the symbol for the Chilean Peso. It's implied in the parentheses that the amount of $18,000 is not in USD. I'm not sure what the ą is doing there, though.
Well, IMHO, they could have worded it a lot better. $ is also the symbol for US dollars.
That symbol is used for a number of different currencies. I don't see that it could have been made much clearer, since the conversion to US dollars was given explicitly as part of the same sentence! Anytime we are on an obviously foreign site, we should assume currency values are in the local denomination, unless told otherwise.
You mean $18,000 Chilean = $36.00 US wouldn't have been clearer for those who aren't used to traveling abroad
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 6:31 pm
by geckzilla
I don't know, something about the absurdly high dollar amount kind of tipped me off, too...
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 1:50 am
by biddie67
Thanks for the good link to the San Pedro info. I don't want to travel there by myself but if any possibility of a group gets together, I'd like to be notified.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 8:21 pm
by Anthony Barreiro
biddie67 wrote:Thanks for the good link to the San Pedro info. I don't want to travel there by myself but if any possibility of a group gets together, I'd like to be notified.
Sky and Telescope magazine and Spears Travel are organizing a nine-day tour to Atacama in March and April 2014. This past April I took their Iceland northern lights tour. The northern lights were mostly uncooperative, but the tour was very well organized, the accommodations were comfortable, Iceland was beautiful and interesting, and the tour group was very friendly.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 9:52 pm
by Beyond
The Milky Way should be a bit more cooperative than the northern lights.
Re: APOD: Atacama's Cloudy Night (2013 Jul 27)
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 10:36 pm
by Anthony Barreiro
Beyond wrote:The Milky Way should be a bit more cooperative than the northern lights.
Yep. Billions of stars steadily fusing hydrogen produce a more consistent light than one star's erratic solar wind interacting with one tiny planet's magnetosphere. Still, it's a lovely planet and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
But March and April are not the best time of the year to see the Milky Way. You would want to go during the southern hemisphere winter, June through August, to get the best view toward the galactic center.
Atacama's Cloudy Night
Urban light pollution appears to be a global problem. Forty years ago, it was easy to find dark places for watching comets and other celestial wonders near Tucson, AZ. Probably why they built so many telescopes on Kitt Peak. Even then, however, you could see the glow from Phoenix a hundred miles to the north. These days you have to use a black-felt-lined tube to photograph anything overhead, former dark places are now filled with brightly-lit strip malls. When you are up against those with sufficient wealth to ensure a congress-critter's election, it is difficult to get anyone in office to notice the loss of a valuable asset like dark skies. There are strip-mall inhabitants trying to get zoning ordinance waivers so they can leave their neon signs lit well into the night. Would that there were dark skies once again.
