APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

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APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by APOD Robot » Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:14 am

Image Light Pillars from a Little Planet

Explanation: Eerie pillars of light ring the edges of this snowy little planet. Of course the little planet is planet Earth, shown in a nadir-to-zenith, around-the-horizon, little planet projection. The spherical panoramic image mosaic maps a view from Siilinjärvi in eastern Finland. Flat ice crystals, like those more often found in high, thin clouds, are gently fluttering in very cold air near the surface. The pillars of light appear as their briefly horizontal facets reflect upward directed light from ground sources downward, toward the observer. In fact, the fluttering crystals produce an effect analogous to the shimmering columns of moonlight or sunlight reflected by surface waves across water.

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by geckzilla » Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:18 am

Anyone care to extrapolate a street map from this data? :mrgreen:
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Nitpicker » Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:45 am

Looks to be from a jetty on the frozen Siilinlahti harbour, at the end of a road named Valkamantie.

Google Maps says the lat/long is about:
N63.0717, E27.6708

If you type "63.0717,27.6708" into the location bar in Google Maps, you will see a green arrow point to the jetty. (And if you right-click on the spot and select "What's here?" you will get an even more precise lat/long.)

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by geckzilla » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:05 am

Yeah, extrapolate a street map before looking at the real map and then compare your result to see how accurate you are. Probably easier to use the non-spherical projection. http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... ml&act=url
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Nitpicker » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:07 am

With apologies to the local residents, here is a Google Street View of the wooden jetty from the road (at a warmer time of year):
google_street_jetty_from_valkamantie.JPG
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by geckzilla » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:08 am

If you click the arrow graphics on that interactive 360 view at the link in my previous post you can see more 360 views of the same spot at different times of the year/day.

Edit: Actually, you may have to view it sans Google translate frame to see the 360 interaction thingy: http://pallopanoraama.blogspot.fi/2010/ ... skaan.html
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Nitpicker » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:11 am

geckzilla wrote:Yeah, extrapolate a street map before looking at the real map and then compare your result to see how accurate you are. Probably easier to use the non-spherical projection. http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... ml&act=url
My apologies, I didn't realise you were using "extrapolate" so literally. :mrgreen:

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Boomer12k » Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:07 am

Awesome....looks like the Eskimo Nebula...or something....


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Post by neufer » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:44 pm

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/nick-tells-gatsby-you-cant-repeat-past-gatsby-396522 wrote:
<<In Chapter One of The Great Gatsby, a dreamy Jay Gatsby stares longingly at the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan's pier. He dreams of the girl he met before he went to war, and hopes to regain her. This quest for the love of Daisy, despite her having married Tom Buchanan, is but a romantic illusion. The past that Gatsby hopes to regain is irretrievable; Daisy is not only older, but she is now a mother and wife; Gatsby himself is not the young innocent that he was when he first met Daisy. For, he has worked for Dan Cody and has made such shady connections as Meyer Wolfscheim. Nevertheless, Gatsby fashions for himself an unreality out of reality, "a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing." He purchases a home on West Egg, he holds parties with hundreds of people who do not know him, he smiles and smiles, he buys shirts of every color, purchases a car of leather-bound interior and fenders like wings, he gulps down the "incomparable milk of wonder," but Daisy is offended by West Egg, "this unprecendented place that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village.">>
http://thegreatgatsbysandm.blogspot.com/2011/05/green-light.html wrote:

<<The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a significant symbol within the book. To Gatsby, the green light represents his dream, which is Daisy. To attain her would be completing Gatsby’s American Dream. The first time the green light is seen in the novel is also the first time Nick sees Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes, “…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away…” The green light is described as ‘minute and far away’ which makes it appear impossible to reach. This will prove to be true for Gatsby. The green light also represents society’s desire and the seeming impossibility of achieving the materialistic American Dream.

At the end of the novel Nick concludes the book with these words, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” This describes Gatsby’s inability to move on from the past. Everything he does in the novel is to try and recreate the past. In this metaphor, Gatsby tries to goes against the currents—or time—to reach the green light or his dream. And as in the quote, the green light which represents his dream, ‘recedes’ like waves year by year.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by luna » Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:24 pm

:roll: photos of light-pollution on APOD ... please stop suggesting this stuff is a good thing.

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:26 pm

Thanks APOD, We all have tomorrow for which to look forward. If you ask my daughter - DiCaprio has a bright future too. :really?:
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by geckzilla » Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:29 pm

luna wrote::roll: photos of light-pollution on APOD ... please stop suggesting this stuff is a good thing.
The way the light interacts with the ice crystals is beautiful. It is a beautiful sort of light pollution.
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by starsurfer » Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:20 pm

It reminds me of the Cat's Eye Nebula.

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by ddorn777 » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:17 pm

RE: Gatsby

DiCaprio? Or Redford?


Either way, I like these "little world" photos. I saw a sun pillar just the other day backed by a glorious sunset sky, and had no one to share it with. I just enjoyed the beauty in silence.

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by neufer » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:21 pm

luna wrote:
:roll: photos of light-pollution on APOD ... please stop suggesting this stuff is a good thing.

geckzilla wrote:
The way the light interacts with the ice crystals is beautiful.
It is a beautiful sort of light pollution.
And the kind they don't get to see in North Korea!
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20011105/ wrote:
:arrow: <<Researchers analyzed records for 7,200 global weather stations and used satellite observations of night-lights to identify stations with minimal local human influence. U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellites measure the brightness of nighttime lights all over the Earth's surface. These were used to identify weather stations where urbanization was most likely to contaminate the weather records.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by neufer » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:37 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
ddorn777 wrote:
RE: Gatsby

DiCaprio? Or Redford?
:arrow: Warner Baxter
ddorn777 wrote:
Either way, I like these "little world" photos. I saw a sun pillar just the other day backed by a glorious sunset sky, and had no one to share it with. I just enjoyed the beauty in silence.
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Beyond » Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:54 pm

That was nice :!: The first video i didn't have to turn the sound down on. Thanks Art. :yes: :thumb_up:
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by neufer » Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:57 pm

Beyond wrote:
That was nice :!: The first video i didn't have to turn the sound down on.
Thanks Art. :yes: :thumb_up:
You just wanted to ogle the bathing beauties.
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by Beyond » Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:11 pm

NAH! I was enjoying the quiet. And besides, any bathing beauties there were, weren't in view long enough to ogle. :no: :thumb_down:
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Re: APOD: Light Pillars from a Little Planet (2014 Jan 31)

Post by SaraBiga » Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:11 am

Is it just me or this little, beautiful, pillaresque planet looks like Sauron gone Orange Clockwork? ;-)