Starship Asterisk*

Is there vertical exaggeration in today's image? How much? I checked all the links in the text, hope I didn't overlook it.

I haven't found the date of the image. Since the light echo is 6 light-years across, I expect it to be 3 years after the initial burst. Is that true? I found the image here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:V838_Monocerotis_expansion.jpg which says it's from Feb. 8, 2004. This is about 25 months af...

Has a remnant been identified for Cas A?

Thanks, all. This is showing the approximate nature of many astronomical values, which I should have been aware of already.

CMatisse, Zeta Oph is moving about 24 km./sec X 31,000,000 sec./yr. = 744 million km./yr. It's distance is about 460 light-years X 9.5 trillion km./l.y. = 4.37 quadrillion km. So it moves about arctan(744 million km./4.37 quadrillion km.) = 0.000000170 degrees across the sky in a year, which is 0.00...

I don't see a supernova remnant anywhere nearby. But maybe it is too faint now. I am thinking that if a larger companion exploded, then THIS would become the more massive, and the companion would now be dragged along with Zeta Oph. It would not have been "Flung" out of the system. It woul...

Since I enjoy the feeling of jaw-dropping astonishment, I look at all the images. Not every day, but there's a special pleasure from having 3 or 4 on the stack, and going through them all. It's like a meal made of desserts. Today's wonderful Vesta image got a loud "Oh!" out of me. Id like ...

The thin ring of light seems several pixels across. Has anyone estimated the thickness which appears lit? I would guess it to be much less than the full depth of the atmosphere. In other words, we see a light band only above a certain altitude. Could this affect the spectrum in the band, presumably ...

Since Orion leaps up from the horizon at very different angles (in the second case it's more of a handspring), I believe this means the two clips are from different times of the year.

And everything looks like Florida.

Excuse me for nitpicking, but I believe the APOD picture does not show the outline of the Earth's shadow. The shadow moves across the stars at a little less than 1 degree/day, due to the Earth's annual motion around the Sun. So during the several hours needed to get all the Moon images, the shadow m...

I stopped the video with the insect showing. It has 6 legs, 2 antennae and long wings. I couldn't see it's mouth well, but it seems consistent with a wasp or dragonfly.

"Pleiades" is misspelled.

The bright arc at lower left strongly resembles the curved corner of the metal band between panes of an airplane window. The right half of the reflected window is silhouetted by a seat back, probably. Too bad we can't see the window corner of the one we're looking through. Are there other shots from...