Starship Asterisk*

I have a question: what is the pinkish line that crosses the image almost horizontally at around 2/9 of the height? Since it was taken from Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, which is nominally 35°N latitude, and the line passes just below the star 17 Eri, which has a declination of 5°S, it's probably a g...

Mercury is ~1/285th the diameter of the Sun resulting in a temporary drop in light of ~12.34 parts per million. According to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s MICA 2.2.2 software, for the transit of 11-November-2019, the sun was 16’ 9.4” semi-diameter while Mercury was 5.0” semi-diameter. Therefore, the...

If Mercury is 1/200th the diameter of the Sun, then it's area would block 1/40,000th of the Sun's disk, resulting in a temporary 0.0025% drop in the light observed. Or, 25 parts per million. Mercury is ~1/285th the diameter of the Sun resulting in a temporary drop in light of ~12.34 parts per milli...

There’s an extensive description of the image capture at Spaceweather.com.

Was just viewing this cluster in the deep ink black skies of upper lower Michigan.No street lights or light pollution on our block .Stunning. As you look at them with unaided eyes, how many of them can you see? Then, look at them with binoculars or a small telescope. I've heard that most people see...

"...the International Space Station (ISS) can be seen as a bright spot about once a month from many locations." I don't understand that statement. From my location in southern Manitoba it is visible every morning from October 25 to November 12. That is 19 days in a row, and often more tha...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Swarthmore_College_Observatory.jpg/1200px-Swarthmore_College_Observatory.jpg However, this picture shows Cunningham House in the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College, which predates the Sproul Observatory. The Sproul Observatory is where va...

This is the first time to my knowledge that a person has the APOD and the EPOD simultaneously, with almost the same picture. See today’s EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) at...

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2019/06/suns ... noxes.html

Might that red streak reflected on the lake be a meteor from behind the clouds? It is possible. The streak coincidentally is short enough and apparently in the right position to be hidden by the cloud that's partially covering Taurus, coincidentally pointing near the Perseid radiant, and is coincid...

I'm not absolutely sure that the blue nebula at top right in the APOD is really NGC 604. But it is absolutely certain that the nebula in question is an emission nebula and that its dominant color is red. Yes, it is NGC 604. If you follow “the second largest image ever released” link, you’ll see a t...

mjsakers wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 4:54 pm Venus would have also been in crescent phase. This would have been good to mention, though you can't see it at this magnification and exposure. Too bad, that would look cool if you could!

Except that on the day of this appulse, 31-January-2019, Venus was in a gibbous phase, 62% illuminated.

Today's picture is a bit unusual in that it's a Monday repeat (of a repeat). It was last used on 2015-August-30, and before that, on 2009-May-10. I didn't look back beyond that.

The image (and a working link to the larger version) reappeared after I posted my second reply and I was able to save a copy to look at more closely. I still don't understand what's happening with the link; regardless, I was able to match a couple of things in the image with other online images and ...

That's weird. I posted my reply, and then the image appeared in the attachment box and the link to a larger version worked, but only in Firefox on the laptop, and only briefly. Before I could get a good look, it disappeared and could not be regenerated. I saw the Y-shaped asterism Boomer mentioned, ...

I've tried to view your image Boomer, but unfortunately, the link is dead using both Firefox on my Windows laptop and Safari on my iPad. It currently indicates 35 views when I move my mouse cursor over the link, but I see that it records even the unsuccessful clicks (a number of which are mine). Oh ...

A guide to telescopic objects within M33 is the subject of Alan Whitman’s 2009 magazine article “Digging Deep in M33” that’s posted online at Sky & Telescope... https://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/M33-Whitman.pdf NGC 604 is relatively easy visually with a modest scope (e.g., 12” o...

Bob King just posted a nice article, Explore the Veil Nebula, at Sky & Telescope online.

What is the small streak near the middle of the left side? Another meteor that left a short streak and a residual glow? A comet? To me, it looks like a comet. Everything that enters the atmosphere, no matter if it is dust or space debris, looks a like meteor. It also appears as if the tail has clea...

Interestingly, there's a very bright and seemingly out-of-place object not far above the handle of the Sagittarius "Teapot" in the background sky (near the top of the picture as it opens, you may have to tilt the animation to see it). As best as I can tell, this is Jupiter in June of 2008....

Perhaps arbitrarily, I’m little concerned about trying to see dim (134340) Pluto. I’ve seen it many times in the past, but I would need my 12.5-inch Newtonian to do it, and even with that scope, it’s borderline because of its inherent dimness coupled with atmospheric extinction at its current low a...

Just for fun, I like to visually spot all seven of the major planets in a single night when circumstances permit, with unaided eyes and small optics like binoculars. The current (and soon to end) evening elongation of Mercury provided many opportunities, and I ended up doing it five times. I would s...

I was curious about the position of (4) Vesta in the picture, which would also provide the actual date (and I didn't want to log into FB to see if there was more info; also, no EXIF data this time). Vesta is the relatively bright, star-like object to the left of, and slightly lower than the open clu...

Well, I can definitely see M24 in there ( source ), and, I think, the Lagoon Nebula plus NGC 6559 and the Trifid-M21 complex, ( here , by Terry Hancock and Fred Herrmann), and most certainly the Pipe Nebula ( here , by João Alves)! All trapped inside a crystal ball. That's amazing. Indeed, the Pipe...

... Saturn was the key to getting the date. ... I agree, along with Mars, I thought Saturn put the nail in the coffin so to speak. Although not as much fun, the EXIF time stamp really nails it at 2:01am 5/15/18. How do you like that -- the EXIF info was there all along and I didn't even think to lo...

May 15 would put Vesta back near Messier 24, I guess: Indeed, on May 15, (4) Vesta was between M17 and M24, at the southwest vertex of a nearly-equilateral triangle, about 20 arc minutes per side, with the stars HD 168000 and HD 168329, both nominally 7th magnitude. Saturn was the key to getting th...