Starship Asterisk*

Cave with Aurora Skylight

Explanation: Yes, but have you ever seen aurora from a cave? To capture this fascinating juxtaposition between below and above, astrophotographer Bjargmundsson spent much of a night alone in the kilometer-long Raufarhólshellir lava cave in Iceland during late March. There, he took separate images of three parts of the cave using a strobe for illumination. He also took a deep image of the sky to capture faint aurora, and digitally combined the four images later. The 4600-year old lava tube has several skylights under which stone rubble and snow have accumulated. Oh -- the person standing on each mound -- it's the artist.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[/b]

Wow, what a selfies!!

I have to admit, I was expecting to see the Cave Nebula based on yesterday's clue.

APOD Robot wrote: the artist

The Artist was a great movie, especially Berenice Bejo!

Ancient cave art proves it was warm enough to surf the Iceland beaches less than 4,600 years ago.

From below the Earth, through the sky and to the stars. Nice picture. Nicely conceived.

Interesting...but still a "created" image....Photoshop is just wonderful....ART...does not have to be "truth"...and is often just imagination.

:---[===] *

oops. pretty artificial.

would like to see real stuff here.

is there some etiquette that pictures shown here are expected to follow?

Guest wrote:oops. pretty artificial.

would like to see real stuff here.

is there some etiquette that pictures shown here are expected to follow?

No, not at all. If an editor wants to feature a guy dancing, it goes up.

Boomer12k wrote:Interesting...but still a "created" image....Photoshop is just wonderful....ART...does not have to be "truth"...and is often just imagination.

:---[===] *

To be perfectly fair, though, this is not imagination and not untruthful as you have implied. Just because something didn't take a single exposure or one click of a camera doesn't make it fiction.

Psnarf wrote:Ancient cave art proves it was warm enough to surf the Iceland beaches less than 4,600 years ago.

I can't figure out what that image is showing, but as far as surfing goes, it still is warm enough to surf Iceland beaches.

I have to admit I too have a somewhat negative response to ‘photoshoped’ pictures. That does not mean they are not intriguing in their own right though.
Take for instance this photo; it becomes even more interesting when you turn it upside down. When I did I wasn’t sure whether I was looking down someone’s throat and could see the uvula the beginings of the branches of the trachea or whether I was looking at a somewhat devilish cats face.

The image is too manipulated for my liking. I hope this is not the start of an increasing use of highly photoshopped images for an APOD. I do realise that some APODs have been photoshopped to bring out features, but this image to me goes far beyond acceptable manipulation.

As a personal comment I found it sad to see the use of the f-derived expletive that was brought up through the "the artist" link. I do though appreciate that the APOD editors/authors have no control of the content of linked information.

DavidLeodis wrote:As a personal comment I found it sad to see the use of the f-derived expletive that was brought up through the "the artist" link. I do though appreciate that the APOD editors/authors have no control of the content of linked information.

Friend? Facebook? Flickr? Frostastaðavatn? I couldn't find any expletives! It's just his Facebook page. I'm not sure what you saw but when I can't find it myself it kind of makes me think you are trying really hard to find something to be upset about.

geckzilla wrote:

DavidLeodis wrote:As a personal comment I found it sad to see the use of the f-derived expletive that was brought up through the "the artist" link. I do though appreciate that the APOD editors/authors have no control of the content of linked information.

Friend? Facebook? Flickr? Frostastaðavatn? I couldn't find any expletives! It's just his Facebook page. I'm not sure what you saw but when I can't find it myself it kind of makes me think you are trying really hard to find something to be upset about.

It's a particularly minor expletive in many English speaking cultures. We live in an international world on the Internet, and shouldn't let our own cultural prejudices get in the way.

I still can't even find it! Feeling kind of stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, hahaha, you have to be not logged in to see it. It's just IFLS. lol...

Edit: Why am I laughing? Because this is an astonishingly popular thing to follow on social media and anytime an outreach scientist or someone really not supposed to be using profanity at the moment gets caught up wanting to share or discuss something that was posted to IFLS, much awkwardness ensues. This is one of those instances where the use of the word isn't even derogatory and yet here we are, talking about it like it's some horrible, forbidden offense.

geckzilla wrote:Oh, hahaha, you have to be not logged in to see it. It's just IFLS. lol...

Edit: Why am I laughing? Because this is an astonishingly popular thing to follow on social media and anytime an outreach scientist or someone really not supposed to be using profanity at the moment gets caught up wanting to share or discuss something that was posted to IFLS, much awkwardness ensues. This is one of those instances where the use of the word isn't even derogatory and yet here we are, talking about it like it's some horrible, forbidden offense.

Fair enough geckzilla you clearly don't mind the use of that word nor seeing it in print. I do mind.

I don't doubt that you were offended. Nothin' I can do about your offense.