Starship Asterisk*

[quote="Chris Peterson" post_id=298916 time=1579554027 user_id=117706]
[quote=ta152h0 post_id=298911 time=1579547349 user_id=100922]

The town where I live now has installed LED lights all over the city, pretty much wiping out stars at night. Can you tell from the Space Station that city lights are brighter?[/quote]
Too bad they bungled it. LED lights also allow for the most dark-sky friendly cities to exist.[/quote]
Were they LED a stray lights :?:

[quote=ta152h0 post_id=298911 time=1579547349 user_id=100922]
The town where I live now has installed LED lights all over the city, pretty much wiping out stars at night. Can you tell from the Space Station that city lights are brighter?
[/quote]

Too bad they bungled it. LED lights also allow for the most dark-sky friendly cities to exist.

The town where I live now has installed LED lights all over the city, pretty much wiping out stars at night. Can you tell from the Space Station that city lights are brighter?

[attachment=0]QuadrantidsOrion_Horalek_960_annotated.jpg[/attachment]


Very nice write up Ann! I love this picture! 8-)

Check out the photographer’s website as it is fantastic!
Not only is he very skilled with an eye for composition he must have a monster of a travel budget.
Truly great stuff!

Today's APOD is a lovely picture. Not surprisingly, while I appreciate the Quadrantids and really like the explanation of how they got their name, I get my kicks from the splendid portrait of the night sky. Among other delights of the image, I just love the fact that we get to see such a great picture that "puts the current faintness of Betelgeuse in perspective". We can compare Betelgeuse with Aldebaran, yes, Betelgeuse is fainter, and Procyon, yes, Betelgeuse is strikingly fainter, and Rigel, yes, Betelgeuse is very obviously fainter than Rigel too, of course. I'm glad that this remarkable faintness of Betelgeuse has been recorded for posterity so beautifully here, because the now somewhat sickly red supergiant of Orion could return to normal in a few months or even sooner, and then it's nice to have photographic evidence of how faint it once was!

Unsurprisingly, I absolutely adore the colors. They are saturated but not "too saturated", and they carry a ton of information. I love the fact that Betelgeuse looks redder than Aldebaran in this image, because it really is redder, too!

I love that we can see how bright and saturated various emission nebulas are. Tiny little Orion Nebula is the brightest, of course, and much larger and strikingly rosy pink Rosette Nebula looks like the second brightest nebula. The Horsehead region nebula in Orion and the California Nebula appear to share third place.

And I love the blue, blue, blue color of the Pleiades. What a surprise, right? :wink:

Ann

In the annotation it should read the Rosette Nebula - Rosetta is the stone found in Egypt that allowed the hieroglyphics to be deciphered.

[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200120.html] [img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_200120.jpg[/img] [size=150]Quadrantid Meteors through Orion[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] Why are these meteor trails nearly [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_(geometry)]parallel[/url]? Because they were all shed by the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(196256)_2003_EH1]same space rock[/url] and so can be traced back to the same direction on the sky: the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_(meteor_shower)]radiant[/url] of the [url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-meteorites/quadrantids/in-depth/]Quadrantid Meteor Shower[/url]. This direction used to be toward the old constellation of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrans_Muralis]Quadrans Muralis[/url], hence the name Quadrantids, but when the [url=https://www.iau.org/administration/about/]International Astronomical Union[/url] formulated its [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_designated_constellations]list of modern constellations[/url] in 1922, this constellation [url=https://i0.wp.com/mrfrs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/MRFRS_SadCat.jpg?fit=877%2C480&ssl=1]did not make the list[/url]. Even though the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190109.html]meteors[/url] are now considered to originate from the recognized [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes]constellation of Bootes[/url], the old name stuck. Regardless of the designation, every January the Earth moves through a [url=https://external-preview.redd.it/nCQYtDdU6wGwidGkWAoJ-DRudEujUCHxGQ2EgQsCALQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=0fdc375b9d9a8cec1a2b9823b0cf2e11f703a69e]dust stream[/url] and bits of this [url=https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/288689/why-do-meteors-heat-up-when-they-fall-through-the-atmosphere]dust glow as meteors as they heat up[/url] in [url=https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/463940main_atmosphere-layers2_full.jpg]Earth's atmosphere[/url]. The [url=https://www.facebook.com/PetrHoralekPhotography/photos/a.842176325897979/2688795694569357/?type=3&theater]featured image[/url] composite was taken on January 4 with a picturesque snowy [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovakia]Slovakia[/url]n landscape in the foreground, and a [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151123.html]deep-exposure sky prominently featuring the constellation Orion[/url] in the background. The red star [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200101.html]Betelgeuse[/url] [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200102.html]appears unusually dim[/url] -- its fading over the past few months is being [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2001/AlphaOriLightCurve_AAVSO.jpg]tracked by astronomers[/url].


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