Starship Asterisk*

Thanks johnnydeep and Ann. Very helpful info.

1. Yes, that does look like a cat's paw! I can even imagine a claw or two showing in it. 2. Got it. As you indicate, no red giant currently in the nebula. Interestingly, the system does not settle for one famously confusing term ("planetary"), but is described as a "cometary" sy...

I feel that Neufer , Art Neuendorffer, perhaps the greatest profile of Starship Asterisk* ever, would protest at the description of today's APOD as Shapespeare in space. This is Shakespeare is space: 2985 Shakespeare (prov. designation: 1983 TV1) is a stony Koronian asteroid from the outer region o...

Wow, great photo! I agree, what an amazing image! It would not have been as great had Valerio Minato simply "happened" onto it. But to have planned it and had to return many times until this perfect capture, is so impressive and satisfying. I think the light that is the Earthshine that li...

Thanks for the notes, Victor. I can't answer any the questions about the colors, but I appreciate the answers you supplied yourself, Ann. The caption for today kind of begs the question of whether one could get a photo composition including both an auroral "pseudo-rainbow" and a regular ra...

Marvellous image. !! This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour"..... Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ?? Good point Ron, Earth is pretty distant in this shot. I guess " over an hour" leaves it open for interpretation. The "perspective from s...

Thanks, Victor and Ann.

If someone were to attempt to estimate the mass of the Ring Nebula from the Hubble image in the year 2010, and then to do the same with the new JWST image now available, wouldn't they now get a significantly higher figure, now that they (we) can see a lot more stuff?

Beautiful image! But it looks like the central region of this galaxy is pretty empty of stars - is this really the case? It's an illusion. The central region is nothing but stars! Thanks, Chris. When I look at this flat image, a 2-dimensional elliptical region, or oval, appears to be the main illum...

This is one of the most beautiful and dramatic images of a prominence I've ever seen. And it's amazing to me that it was produced with an amateur telescope on the ground. Fine work, Mike Wenz! (If I were in Arizona at any time in the last month, I would not be out trying to photograph the Sun. I'd b...

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:40 am

Don't mention it, Ann!

VictorBorun wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 5:15 pm

And Victor, very interesting, I did not know that the newer TV standards show more colors as well as more pixels.
I haven't bought one yet, but they sure look gorgeous in stores.

Actually, something doesn't seem right in the description in the first link from today's APOD caption. The link goes to: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-maven-spacecraft-stuns-with-ultraviolet-views-of-red-planet . So this article is NASA's own publication of today's APOD. But it sa...

https://asterisk.apod.com/download/file.php?id=47758&t=1 MAVEN's Ultraviolet Mars Image Credit: MAVEN, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Univ. Colorado, NASA APOD Robot wrote: Recorded by the MAVEN spacecraft's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument in July 2022 (left) and Janu...

... I'll try to simplify: Since the Sun's declination is essentially constant over the ~7½ hours of imagery, the Sun's declination circle is not a great circle when the horizon is flat (a great circle). The simulated Stellarium APOD view below uses a stereographic projection (my favorite for visual...

Lovely plots! If the dots are accurate, and I assume they are, then they're a bit of a surprise to me. I thought the path would always look like a part of an ellipse, but the shapes are a bit different than that. Note how the path on the summer solstice, especially, seems to get nearly linear near t...

I wonder, Has SAFER ever been used? I mean, has any astronaut or cosmonaut found himself suddenly untethered during an spacewalk and had to find his back to ISS using SAFER? That's pretty scary. Wikipedia replies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Aid_For_EVA_Rescue#:~:text=SAFER%20is%20des...

Have you ever been out in the forest and become overwhelmed by all the majestic trees and green leaves all around you? And you try to take a picture of it all. And it comes out like nothing, because your camera isn't very good. The picture you took doesn't convey the depth of the forest, and it onl...

Ann wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 7:10 am ...
Note to the upper right of the wiggly blue line a small, faint gray clump embedded in the "head" of a tidal tail or a dust lane. That thing could be an evaporating satellite galaxy, if you ask me.

Have we caught the culprit?

Ann

Ann, are you talking about this?

Is it mere coincidence that the two paths seem to be at an almost exact right angle to each other? I'd say pretty much just a coincidence. I mean this plot is a lot like a plot of the orbits of any man-made satellite of earth, although the path is that of a shadow under a slowly-moving sun, which s...

The goddess Selene was hanging out at Poseidon's temple that night ... but not for very long. Nice bit of astronomical truth about crescent moons never visible high in the sky -- to the naked eye. Are there no fancy instruments that can see it in the middle of the day near the sun (not at an eclipse...

Just an incredible shot. So amazing to consider that the photographer was actually able to plan to catch a meteor! We live in wonderful times. There's a beautiful layer of fog in the field, making the shot even more dreamy. So this meteor actually had pieces (meteorites) impact? I would have guessed...

illEez wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 11:39 am Do we have any audio, or a way of getting some, from these worlds and moons we visit

"In space no one can hear you scream."

What an incredible shot. Cassini was the greatest photographer -- the Ansel Adams of the NASA planetary space missions. I wonder about the structure of the canyon and the ridges in the image. I wonder if somehow their formation is able to be predicted by forces acting on Enceladus. That just maybe, ...

I argue that the numerous scattered dust structures in Ophiuchus, including Barnard 68, are remnants of a major starforming event that took place some - oh, 15 million years ago? - and which are all located some 400-500 light-years away from us. It is of course possible that Barnard 68 is a foregro...

Don't know about you, but Barnard 68 looks like a puny little molecular cloud to me. What stars can be born from it? Ann Do I get it right: we think Barnard 68 is no farther than 500 ly away and no less than 2 solar masses because we do not happen to see any star in front of it. As far as we know B...