Starship Asterisk*

A different and jealous astrophotographer: "T'was a night for the capturing of celestial sights, and as I roamed the earth below, I stumbled upon a scene that would bring even the steadiest of hearts to a slow. Lo and behold, a photographer was there, with his lens fixed upon the sky so fair. H...

Scotty from Star Trek: "Aye, ye'll nae believe what I saw the other night! I was out takin' some photos of the sky and I came across a sight I've ne'er seen before. It was a band of light that stretched across the whole sky! I was told it was called airglow, caused by the Sun's light excitin' t...

A news reporter who didn't have time to check facts: Breaking news! A stunning sky was caught on camera in the south of France. The photographer was on a mission to capture the Milky Way Galaxy, you know, that thing in the sky with all the stars. But, in a surprising twist, the foreground sky was li...

Philomena Cunk : Well, there was this sky, right? And it was a bit of a mystery, because on the one hand, it looked familiar, but on the other, it was all strange and new. So, there was this photographer, and their big plan was to snap a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy, you know, that band of stars...

Carl Sagan: The sky that night was a curious blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The photographer's objective was to document the well-known band of the Milky Way Galaxy stretching across the sky, with a historic castle in the foreground. However, what was truly surprising was the appearance o...

For the APOD that appears on 2023 February 15 , here is what ChatGPT returned when asked to rewrite the text in the style of ... Shakespeare: Lo and behold! A sky most strange and rare That captured the heart and eye, so fair. A quest was taken by a lensed hand, To frame the arch of our Milky Band. ...

Holger Nielsen wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 9:00 am The "Discuss" menu item is missing on todays APOD image, which is quite impressive (the image, that is).

A typo was made on the main NASA page that has now been corrected. The "Discuss" link now shows. We apologize for the mistake.
- RJN

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:30 am

APOD Robot wrote:
The central star in this image is WR 40...

Warning! This is a bad site!

Thank you! That site has now been de-linked on the main NASA APOD. - RJN

An emailer has alerted APOD that this system was discovered using the southern TRAPPIST obsevatory at La Silla Observatory in Chile, not the northern version of TRAPPIST in Morocco as originally claimed. This has now been corrected on the main NASA site at apod.nasa.gov. We apologize for the oversig...

It should be 87° Thanks, Rob! Interesting point. However, the angular diameter across the entire frame was not given. It is common in astrophotography, as you know, to zoom in or zoom out of objects to make them appear angularly big or small compared to the angular size of the frame. This APOD (htt...

pjw wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:31 am But where is "Sidney"???? (Yes, even NASA make typos)

Thanks! Fixed it (to Sydney).

Here is a link to a description of some former graduate students: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/nemiroff/FormerPhDStudents.html . More recently than described in that link from 2011, graduate students that have worked with me include Amir Shahmoradi (currently Asst. Prof at UT Arlington), Lior Shamir (curr...

An opening for a new Ph D.-seeking graduate student in astrophysics is expected in Fall 2023 at Michigan Technological University. This is an unusual position as the student is expected to have a significant interest in developing skills both in research astrophysics, as relevant to my research inte...

I have been informed that on December 4, 2022, APOD was a clue on a Washington Post Sunday Crossword Puzzle. Here is a link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/crossword-puzzles/sunday-evan-birnholz/ The APOD clue was for 113 Down and read "Org. with an Astronomy Picture of the Day site". Cool...

This may be forgotten if not recorded somewhere: On November 4, 2022, APOD was a clue on the US game show Jeopardy! Here is the link: https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=7497 The APOD clue was in the Double Jeopardy! round for the $1600 question under the topic "The Tangled Web". Th...

FLPhotoCatcher wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:24 am The paragraph starts with a string of words that is not a full.

Yes, my bad. Fixed on the main NASA APOD. Apologies!

Interesting post! Tiktok is certainly popular and becoming even more popular. And APOD does not have a sustained presence on Tiktok that I know about. Someone once did make several short TikTok videos featuring APOD. You can find one by searching for "Tiktok" in APOD's online search engine...

Rauf wrote: ↑Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:21 am "The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

Oops. My bad. Fixed it.Thanks! I apologize for the mistake.
- RJN

The phrase "with 15 times more light-collecting area" as currently written in the caption can be misinterpreted. It refers to field of view, which is a function of the scope's focal length and the camera's sensor size. It is true that JWST has a field of view (how much sky it can capture ...

heehaw wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 1:26 pm "Meteor Shower Radiation" ????

Oops. This was my mistake. Fixed it on the main NASA APOD. Apologies. Thanks for pointing that out.
- RJN

Hello! Isn't the information on this picture a little bit outdated? I think MESSENGER's mission ended in 2015 and is not currently in orbit around Mercury, and the first complete map of the surface was released a couple of years ago. Right? Yes, my bad. This has now been fixed in the main APOD text...

An email from the Gaia team has indicated that our Galaxy's bar is not evident in the featured map. Therefore, that sentence has now been removed from the main NASA APOD. We apologize for the mistake. A link from Gaia that more fully explains some of the map's more unusual features is given here: ht...

The text "The next time that all eight planets will be simultaneously visible in a morning sky will be in 2122" has now been updated to replace "a morning" with "the evening" on the main NASA APOD site. - RJN

Hello, after clicking the image I get this error: Not Found The requested URL /apod/image/2206/Arp286-202203-CDK24-FLIPL9000-LRGB_NicolasROLLAND_signature_LD2048.jpg was not found on this server. Looks like a possible typo in the link, but it is only me getting this error then the problem is somewh...

An emailer has pointed out that the sodium liberated from Mercury is actually in the form of atoms, not molecules. The text on the main NASA APOD page has therefore been updated to indicate this. I apologize for the oversight.
- RJN