Starship Asterisk*

---

Have you seen a great image or video somewhere that you think would make a great APOD? Nominate it for APOD! Please post as much information here as you have about the image/video with a link to any source(s) for it you know of here, and the editors will take a look.

When posting the image itself, please do not post anything larger than a thumbnail here; please honor the copyright holder's copyright.

Please keep hotlinked images under 500K.

Thank you!

<< Previously

Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334)
http://www.karelteuwen.be/photo_page.ph ... 2&album=19
Copyright: Karel Teuwen

Butterfly Cluster (M6)
https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/m6_ ... ly_cluster
Copyright: Michael Sidonio

Bernes 149
http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... php?id=172
Copyright: Thierry Demange, Richard Galli and Thomas Petit

Sh2-239
https://www.hansonastronomy.com/sh2239lbn821
Copyright: Mark Hanson

Toby Jug Nebula (IC 2220)
https://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.c ... /i-gc2DRQk
Copyright: Rolf Olsen

Hu 4
https://www.astrobin.com/tb4f4k/
Copyright: Mark Stiles This is one of a few discoveries by the French amateur astronomer Laurent Huet.

Patchick 5
https://pbase.com/jshuder/image/170607023
Copyright: Jim Shuder An interesting scientific paper can be found here.

NGC 2442
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC2 ... O-New.html
Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatories/Robert Gendler and Roberto Colombari

Spheres on Spheres
ESO Picture of the Week | 2020 Aug 03

Image Credit: Yuri Beletsky (LCO)/ESO

---

During one of his visits to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in Chile, astrophotographer and ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky was fortunate enough to capture this breathtaking sight: three celestial spheres — each very different! — lined up beautifully in the sky.

The largest sphere in this photo is one of the VLT’s four Auxiliary Telescopes. These movable telescopes can be arranged in different configurations to achieve different scientific goals.

Floating above the auxiliary telescope is the Moon. The setting Sun illuminates only a sliver of our rocky satellite, though some of the lunar maria — the dark, sea-like remnants of lava flows from the Moon’s early days — are visible, too. Near the top of the image is Venus, the second planet from the Sun and our planetary neighbour.

Seeing Near and Far
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2020 Aug 03

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gregg

---

The barred spiral galaxy known as NGC 4907 shows its best side from 270 million light-years away to anyone who can see it from the northern hemisphere.This is a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the face-on the galaxy, displaying its beautiful spiral arms, wound loosely around its central bright bar of stars.

Shining brightly below the galaxy is a star that is actually within our own Milky Way galaxy. This star appears much brighter than the many millions of stars in NGC 4907 as it is 100 000 times closer, residing only 2500 light-years away.

NGC 4907 is also part of the Coma Cluster, a group of over 1000 galaxies, some of which can be seen around NGC 4907 in this image. This massive cluster of galaxies lies within the constellation of Coma Berenices, which is named for the locks of Queen Berenice II of Egypt: the only constellation named after a historical person.

The appearance of this galaxy is interesting. It has a long yellow bar and an extensive but rather flimsy set of spiral arms that are partly smooth and dominated by A-type stars like Sirius, and partly peppered with small clusters of OB stars and nebulas surrounding them. The core of the galaxy is very bright and appears blue-white, which may or may not mean that there is quite a lot of star formation near the nucleus.

There is not much dust in this galaxy, and overall, there is not much star formation either.

My first thought, when I saw the picture of NGC 4907, was indeed that this galaxy is relatively poor in star formation. But when you consider that it is a member of the rich Coma Cluster of galaxies, whose members are in most cases completely red and dead, then NGC 4907 suddenly looks quite young and vigorous.

It's interesting to consider the filters used for this image, too. They were a long-pass near-ultraviolet filter at 350 nm, and a long-pass optical orange filter at 600 nm.

At least, with the near ultraviolet filter, it seems certain that Hubble detected most of the clusters of young massive stars in this galaxy.

Ann

Investigating Venus’s Volcanic Activity in the Lab
AAS NOVA | Featured Image | 2020 Aug 03

Susanna Kohler wrote:

Credit: K. S. Cutler et al, 2020 PSJ

---

Is Venus still volcanically active today? A new study led by Kyra Cutler (USRA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute; University of Birmingham, UK) investigated this question in an unusual way: by examining how rocks age in a laboratory. The photo above shows a sample of alkali basalt before and after it was exposed to 7 weeks of oxidization in a furnace to reproduce conditions similar to those on Venus’s surface. The mineralogical changes of the rock can be easily seen here — particularly the formation of hematite, visible as small white specks — and it’s even more dramatically evident in the reflectance spectra captured to mimic remote observations of Venus. Cutler and collaborators’ experiments indicate that if the basalt on the surface of Venus contains olivine or glass, some lava flows we’ve observed can only be a few years old. And even in the unlikely event that the basalt is fully crystalline instead, it’s still at most decades to hundreds of years old. These results strongly indicate that Venus is currently volcanically active.

Experimental Investigation of Oxidation of Pyroxene and Basalt: Implications for
Spectroscopic Analyses of the Surface of Venus and the Ages of Lava Flows ~ K. S. Cutler et al

• Planetary Science Journal 1(1):21 (2020 June) DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/ab8faf

My photo of Pickering's Triangle:
This is 17 hours 40 mins of HOO exposure from my Bortle 6 driveway. Captured using a 6" f/4 newtonian, ASI1600, and Astrodon filters on an Orion Sirius mount. Direct link to the full 39MP image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/501 ... ed2b_o.png

NGC 1559
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1806a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA

NGC 1531-2
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/ga ... 2/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquin Pérez

North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and Pelican Nebula (IC 5070)
https://www.cxielo.photography/ngc-7000-wide
Copyright: Martin Rusterholz

starsurfer wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:01 pm NGC 1559
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1806a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Click to view full size image

Wow, that picture of NGC 1559 is great! And NGC 1559 is an amazing galaxy. It's so blue and full of star formation!

I'm going to guess that it is quite small, because galaxies that are so full of young stars are typically small in the nearby universe.

Ann

NGC 1614
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2032a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Adamo

Space Telescope wrote:

NGC 1614 is the result of a past galactic merger which created its peculiar appearance. (...)

Owing to its turbulent past and its current appearance, astronomers classify NGC 1614 as a peculiar galaxy, a starburst galaxy, and a luminous infrared galaxy. Luminous infrared galaxies are among the most luminous objects in the local Universe — and NGC 1614 is, in fact, the second most luminous galaxy within 250 million light-years.

Ann

StDr 1
https://www.astrobin.com/iunybv/D/
Copyright: Steven Bellavia This is one of more than a hundred discoveries by the amateur astronomers Xavier Strottner and Marcel Drechsler.

Abell 16
https://www.imagingdeepspace.com/abell-16.html
Copyright: Peter Goodhew

Abell 39
https://www.astrobin.com/xbtj6l/
Copyright: Ron Stanley

Kronberger 68
https://www.astrobin.com/lpw4yy/B/
Copyright: Sascha Schüller This is one of more than a hundred planetary nebulae discovered by the amateur astronomer Matthias Kronberger.

SATURN

Best detalis

https://www.astrobin.com/full/o6cuq9/C/?nc=user

Equipment
MEADE LX200 10 "UHTC
ZWO Optical ASI 462 MC
Filter: Planetary Baader L 1.25 "
Accessory: TeleVue Powermate 2.0x
Mounting: Ioptron Cem60
Polar alignment: Sharcap
Capture: SharpCap V3.0
Processing: Photoshop CS6, AutoStakkert AutoStackert !, Registax 6, Winjupos

Seeing: 3
Transparency: 8

2020/07/10
02:56 UT
São Paulo-SP-BRAZIL

Copyright: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes
Email: Barretosmed@hotmail.com

NGC 2899
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2012a/
Copyright: ESO