Starship Asterisk*

Three objects imaged on Aug. 18th 2014 when the planets were at their lowes angular distance (12 arcmin).
Canon 650D, Telephoto Lens Canon 250 mm
6min total exposition at 800 ISO ON 73 frames staked and processed by DSS and Photoshop
Time 3:00 UT


Copyright Luigi Fiorentino
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alfadubhe/14775399547/

Widefield of IC 410
http://coatesastrophotography.com/
Copyright: Steven Coates
IC 410 an emission nebula about 12,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga. Near the center of the nebulous region is a star cluster ( NGC 1893) and just to the bottom right of this cluster lies two structures that resemble tadpoles. These structures are made of leftover hydrogen and dust from the formation of the star cluster and the "tails" are from the solar wind coming from the stars of NGC 1893.
RGB: 1 hour 18 min Red, 1 hour Green and 1 hour Blue (binned 1x1)
Ha: 5hour 15 min (binned 1x1)
Click here to view Narrowband image
PS CS5
Orion 80mm EON (FL 480mm)
Orion 50mm guide scope with SSAG
QSI 683 ws
Losmandy G-11 with Gemini II
Astrodon Tru-balance E-Series Generation II LRGB filters
Baader 7 nm Ha filter

The Horse Head Nebula listed under the designation B33, is a large cloud of cold gas and dust, which is 1300 light years away from Earth, south of the extreme left of Orion's Belt, specifically the bright star shown in the photo, below left, is Alnitak. It measures approximately 3.5 light years. This nebula is visible by contrast, already is ahead of the emission nebula IC434. Its shape is the most popular of the absorption nebulae.
Copyright: César Cantú
http://www.astrophoto.com.mx/picture.php?/7/category/2

Super Moon 10/08/2014
Copyrights: Moses Sanz Peñalosa Fascinating rhythm: light pulses illuminate a rare black hole
Credits: NASA/H. Feng et al.
An article: http://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/2407 http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33771

Without the rain, there would be no rainbow
Copyrights: Makayla Wheeler Perseid meteor
Copyrights: William Carney Perseids meteors from Alabama
Copyrights: David Resuehr The ISS over Stralsund
Copyrights: Ekkehard Gnadler Lunar Mosaic from Arzachel to South-Pole on June, 05th 2014
Copyrights: Carmelo Zannelli Mars' journey accross the night sky
Copyrights: Uğur Ikizler

W. M. Keck Observatory in action under a 50% moonlit sky

Venus - Jupiter conjunction

Indonesian volcano and Milky Way
Copyrights: Thierry Legault The Veil Nebula Complex
Copyrights: Oliver Czernetz Belt of Venus beach panorama
Copyrights: Joe Thompson
Full size: http://www.orion-com.com/images/belt_of ... 140814.jpg Milky Way over St. John Peak, Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia
Copyrights: Tommy Lim Kang Wen M20 - Trifid Nebula
Copyrights: Jason Jennings
Large size: http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/display ... ld_resol=2 Venus & Jupiter Close Conjunction
Copyrights: Ajay Talwar Summer sunset from Rabat (Malta)
Copyrights: Alexei Pace
Larger size: http://canopus123.files.wordpress.com/2 ... 18_o-1.jpg This morning's Venus-Jupiter conjunction
Copyrights: Alexei Pace
Larger size: http://canopus123.files.wordpress.com/2 ... g_0017.jpg

another jupiter-venus conjunction, with halos down jupiter, moon, venus, the pleiades, the bull... almost two hours later, the pleiades in the great theater of the west, 20" http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33580

Venus+Jupiter conjunction
Copyrights: James Lowenthal Venus and Jupiter Conjunction
Copyrights: Juan Carlos Casado The North American, Cygnus Wall and Pelican Nebulae
Copyrights: Terry Hancock Close-up view of Jupiter (&Io and Europa) and Venus
Copyrights: Pete Lawrence Venus and Jupiter at Dawn
Copyrights: Jimmy Westlake Venus-Jupiter, a day before conjunction
Copyrights: Tunç Tezel Morning conjunction
Copyrights: William Lewis

Venus Jupiter Conjunction as imaged through my SW Equinox (120/900) and a PG Chamaleon Mono in RGB.
The gain set of the camera oversaturated Venus (almost full) but the red spot on Jupiter is clearly visible on the middle of the planet and so the satellites, Io (nearest to Jupiter) and Europa. A different process has been used for the satellites and the planets.

Copyright Luigi Fiorentino
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alfadubhe/14963370122/

Jupiter and Venus Conjunction of August 18 2014
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalre ... 939872336/
Copyright: Marion Haligowski


Jupiter and Venus Conjunction of August 18 2014 by Radical Retinoscopy, on Flickr


Jupiter and Venus Conjunction in the Brightening Dawn by Radical Retinoscopy, on Flickr

The close paring of Jupiter and Venus was photographed before sunrise on August 18, 2014. This was an amazing pairing of less than 0.5 degrees! A Canon T2i and Canon 100 mm f2.0 lens was used.

LMC and I
http://theartofnight.com
Copyright: Mark Gee



The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of my favourite night sky object viewable from the Southern Hemisphere. At a distance of 163,000 light years from earth LMC is considered an irregular type galaxy and the third closest galaxy to our own Milky Way.

For the tech specs of this image, it was shot on a Canon 6D with a Canon 90mm tilt-shift lens, which is such a super sharp lens! The exposure was 10 second shutter at f/2.8 ISO 6400. I had to shoot two single exposure frames to get me and the Large Magellanic Cloud in the one shot, and I stitched them together in Auto Pano Giga.

Fireworks in the Distance
If you didn't know that the Carina Nebula was just rising over the horizon, you could be forgiven for thinking they were fireworks or flares?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ourkind/14951035441/
http://carlosoruephotography.com/blog/
Copyright: Carlos Orue

FYRIPLAKA MYLOS by Stavros Hios, on Flickr

Mauna Kea Observatories 2014 Panorama (8/2/2014):



This is a flattened panorama clipped out of a (very large) 360 interactive view which may be seen here: http://media.astrocamera.net/2014/0802/index.htm

Larger versions of the static panorama can be seen here: http://astrocamera.net/2014/0802/

8 Aug 2014 Moon 3

https://www.flickr.com/photos/92681330@N06/14951345216/

Copyright: Daniel Pasternak


http://www.flickr.com/photos/92681330@N06/

This is an HSO image of Pickering's Triangle. Full image details can be found at: http://helixgate.net/pickerings.html

Thank You,
Mike Siniscalchi

The Aurora season is finally here
http://astrofotografen.se/
Copyright: Göran Strand Last night I got to see my first Aurora for the season, two days earlier than last year but five days later than my personal record from 2011 (August 14th). It was a faint aurora that lasted for several hours and as you can see it was quite cloudy. The orange/yellow clouds to the right are clouds that are lit up by the street lights from the city of Östersund and Frösön. Finally the dark nights are here so we can enjoy the auroras ahead and let us hope that there will be lots of them during the coming season.

The Milky Way Wave.

The nighttime mists of Silex Spring in Yellowstone National Park appears to wave goodbye to the summer Milky Way. As the Milky Way rises high in the sky and slowly slips from view, geysers spew and mist caresses its passing. Soon the snow will cover this vista and the galactic center will slumber till spring arrives once again.

This is a 16 image panorama of a the high late summer Milky Way.

Here's a link to a small image and a larger version.


Small 400 pixel image:



Larger size:

http://re-prop.com/apod/SS-2.jpg

Thanks for looking!

The Perseids and Iridium Flare

High Resolution: http://www.astrobin.com/114938/0/
Copyright: Andrea Pistocchini

Meteor Perseid above my Sundial.

Meteor Perseid.

When Heart & Soul meet Jacques (two consecutive days) Full information: http://www.fb.com/TimmyWongPhotography

drlane's Silex Springs Milky Way is pretty Awesome!!!

drlane wrote:The Milky Way Wave.

The nighttime mists of Silex Spring in Yellowstone National Park appears to wave goodbye to the summer Milky Way. As the Milky Way rises high in the sky and slowly slips from view, geysers spew and mist caresses its passing. Soon the snow will cover this vista and the galactic center will slumber till spring arrives once again.

This is a 16 image panorama of a the high late summer Milky Way.

Here's a link to a small image and a larger version.


Small 400 pixel image:



Larger size:

http://re-prop.com/apod/SS-2.jpg

Thanks for looking!

I think this is totally awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! kmp9126