Starship Asterisk*

[b] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010415.html[/b]
[quote="BMAONE23"]
[img3="[size=175][color=#0000FF]4-vane spider, 3-vane spider, etc.[/color][/size]"]http://www.fpi-protostar.com/img/spikes.gif[/img3][/quote]
[url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=19978&start=0][b]"The code"[/b][/url] is so "vane" he probably thinks those "spiders" are about him. :wink:

They can also be utilized to point out some near by binary stars as these could have split diffraction spikes
similar to [url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060624.html]Pluto/Charon[/url]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fpi-protostar.com/img/spikes.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.fpi-protostar.com/crvmnts.htm&h=413&w=800&sz=35&tbnid=CwQ2QzCkv5CzcM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522diffraction%2Bspikes%2522&hl=en&usg=__t7OHjxSSlW_mtNG2e6PKo6102pc=&sa=X&ei=hL1gTIPYDYWCsQPJlIWICA&ved=0CCYQ9QEwAw

Sheila, welcome to Asterisk! Yes, they are from the telescope. They are called diffraction spikes, and more information about them can be found in this [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike]Wikipedia article[/url].

[quote="sheilab8"]Why do the bright stars appear to have four points in the photographs? Is it an effect of the telescope or camera?[/quote]
It is not uncommon to use four struts to secure the secondary mirror:
[img]http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/images/lsts_0001_0001_0_img0016.jpg[/img]

Why do the bright stars appear to have four points in the photographs? Is it an effect of the telescope or camera?