Starship Asterisk*

You speak English and have an English word for it, huh? :lol: delta, n . Etymology: < Greek δέλτα ( < Phoenician daleth ), name of the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet; also the land at the mouth of the Nile (Herod.), the Indus (Strabo), etc. 1.a. The name of the fourth letter of the Greek alpha...

But, Sam, I have wondered how exactly Hubble does it's Deep Field thing. I assumed that it was a matter of exposure time whilst pointed in any direction. Indeed, galaxies so far away show up only because of the long exposure time. But there are limits on where one can expose. Since space is so big,...

The Galactic Anticenter of the Milky Way is roughly RA 05h 46m, Dec. +28° 56', about 5° east of El Nath of Auriga. The Earth and Sun are roughly two- thirds of the way from the center of our Galaxy to a vaguely defined edge. Towards the Galactic Center in Sagittarius, the Milky Way is thus broad and...

[paraphrase of APOD Robot]: A s y m p h o n y of planet-wide observations began abruptly when Swift detected a burst of high-frequency gamma-rays from GRB 110328A. Twelve hours after the initial fanfare astronomers chimed in with a mid-range observation of the optical counterpart . Early the next d...

owlice wrote:Slow pour?

Alas, no, bottled extra stout. But since it was the last of the pack, and it was SO tasty with the fish and crackers, I decided it deserved a noble memorial on Asterisk*.

Smoked salmon & cheddar on crackers.
Guinness.

owlice wrote:13 miles off on average. How are the rest of you doing on the game?

USA

After a couple tries and a switch to a computer with a mouse instead of a touch pad, I got a 100% with an Avg Error of 0 miles in 239 seconds. Putting Arkansas or Kansas in the middle of a blank map is not easy!
Sam

Well that's frustrating: travel 485 million km beyond Earth's atmosphere and you still might have clouds get in the way of your observation!

Congratulations to NASA and everyone involved!
And what an honor for Claude Debussy!

NoelC wrote: Anyone besides me see the trumpet on wheels (which are of course needed for such a big trumpet).

I saw it too, but assumed it was just the Koozebanian "Face" on Mars.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... an#p144097

Sam

It's a Chilean Flamingo, but I think perhaps a Lesser Flamingo would have been a more appropriate choice, leading the viewer to contemplate other valleys on Earth that might be better compared to Valles Marineris than the Grand Canyon. Perhaps you are getting at the East African Rift which is home ...

orin stepanek wrote: Maybe I can break a chunk of it off!

That might be problematic attaching to your post.

Your next chance to see the Moon this large and bright, this time at full phase within only a few minutes of lunar perigee, will be next year on May 6. Yay! There were clouds this year for me, so I only saw it the night before (still pretty close to perigee and noticeably larger). Thanks for this c...

A little later...

Embarrassingly public realization of mistaking one thing for another.
[Expletive] metonymy.

Shock and offense taken by recent image.
Demand for apology and reparations.

Mercury and Jupiter conjunction over Minneapolis 'Twas a beautiful night here in Minneapolis for the conjunction. 197977_147915505271354_100001587151877_300323_850688_n.jpg 188267_147915515271353_100001587151877_300324_935252_n.jpg 188562_147915538604684_100001587151877_300325_422603_n.jpg (All tak...

Original Caption Released with Image: ... Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is in the center of the image. Titan is 5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles, across. The smaller moon Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) is on the far right, appearing just below the rings. The tiny moon Pandora (81 k...

Dismissal of 70,000 word manifesto with a concise, accurate, snarky statement.

Concise, accurate, level-headed comment.

Newcomer makes trivial comment long after thread has died, forcing everyone to re-live everything that has already been said in order to ascertain what the thread was about in the first place.

Great picture! I've had this on the desktop at work for some time now, and there are several things of interest to me that I wanted like to point out, perhaps have some others correct my miscalculations if needed. Note that all of this is based on the coordinates <<47°04'56.30" N 9°26'53.21&quo...

Stéphane's pictures reminded of this APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090411.html I'm frequently frustrated when something humongous in real life (a mountain, a tree, a building, a Mayan temple perhaps) looks quaint and modest in my pictures of it. Not so in Stéphane's - compare the apparent size o...

For Rob: a toroidally-frosted picnic table (which was empty earlier that morning) P1030892.JPG For Owlice: I did indeed try to bike around in the foot of fresh snow - it's such a beautiful feeling to float through snow on a bike (once you've gotten going) and everything is so clean and pure. P103089...