Starship Asterisk*

There are a couple of places here in Idaho where they are designated dark sky preservation areas. In fact, central Idaho is a recognized dark sky reserve.

Low population density really helps.

I want it to go supernova in my lifetime (or rather, I want to have gone supernova hundreds of years ago so I can see it my lifetime). I was too young and in the wrong hemisphere for the supernova in 1987, and I would love to see one myself. A supernova (in 1572, if I recall correctly) was one of th...

Regardless of whether or not this is a new decade (and since humans named the years, decades, centuries, etc, and there are multiple calendars in use even now, is anyone surprised at the inconsistency?), I love this artist's conception of Betelgeuse. I tell my students about how big Betelgeuse is, h...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oHmVhviO8 Interesting. Mercury moves so fast. The sunspots, by contrast, seem stationary. Anyway, today's APOD reminded me of this unforgettable scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Johann Strauss' An der schönen blauen Donau will surely never be the same! Ann I show ...

It seems to me that the central bulge gets brighter in the after image and the disk is more defined. Did you also remove atmospheric distortions?

This is a beautiful image. The Pleiades is my favorite astronomical object and I look forward to its evening rising every year. Whenever I talk about star clusters in classes, it's always accompanied by pictures of the Pleiades.

The EPOD today is also lenticular clouds. What an interesting coincidence. It's neat to see the same phenomenon looking so different.

I tell my students that there are more people today who believe the Earth is flat than ever did in Antiquity. Probably not the case (although it varies with culture and just what we want to call "antiquity"). For at least the last two or three thousand years, it's likely that most educate...

Awesome image.... since 4th century BC?????....they KNEW the Earth cast a shadow on the Moon, and it was CURVED???? That must have been common knowledge then...why was there ever a "Flat Earth"? Could that have just been a JOKE for the masses or something? "Shecky Aurelius"...at...

I remember when I was in high school ('97 or '98), reading about the amazing discovery of a grand total of five exoplanets, all much larger than Jupiter. In fact, I was so amazed by it that I cut the article out of the Parade magazine and kept it for years. The concept of over 4,000 planets, many Ea...

I'm guessing there are reasons for it, but I don't like it when they do the height exaggerations. I'd rather see the real height in comparison to the terrain.

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/sunset-trace-during-the-equinoxes.html I had just seen that myself and was going ...

Beautiful! I have a soft spot for M13. It's the first object I found in a telescope all by myself. I love globular clusters, they're lovely and such interesting objects, too. I've never seen the H-R diagram for M13 before. Nice one today.

I always try to look at the photo without reading the explanation first so I can test myself. I want to guess what's going on before I read the description, and I'm pleased to say that today I saw Jupiter and the Galilean moons (called the Medici stars by Galileo) very quickly. The artistic composit...

neufer wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 3:14 pmThat nighttime side of Venus even slowly retrograde rotates
....as if it is constantly tracking Earth.

Venus seems to be very very leery of the Earth

Thanks for the extra info!

I knew Venus' rotation was retrograde, but I hadn't realized how slow it is. I may have to snag this video to show my science class when we get to the astronomy unit. It's a great visual.

Aren't Sunday images always repeats?

That is a gorgeous image, though. And a nice combination of astronomy and geology, two of my favorite sciences!

As simple as they are in appearance, I never get tired of seeing globular clusters. They're gorgeous. M13 is my favorite. It's the first one I found in a telescope on my own.

I hate April Fool's Day, but I think I can handle this one.

I've never seen this particular photo before. Very cool.

Interesting, of course. My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System . Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! :P But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness&q...

Ann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:23 pm

neufer wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:03 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:12 pm


What in the image makes you think it's rolling towards us?

That's a great movie scene! The best scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ann

Better than when he shoots the guy showing off with the scimitar?

Is airglow ever really that dramatic? It seems like it would require a long exposure or at least some processing to have it show up so dramatically, especially with all the detail showing up with the Milky Way.

Is there a picture of what we can actually see if we just look at it through a regular telescope? For obvious reasons, all the pictures I've been able to find are after long exposures. I'm just curious about what we actually see ourselves. Is it fully obscured by the dust and gas of the plane of the...

I still am fascinated by these discoveries. I never thought that we'd get such a detailed image of Pluto in my lifetime. The books I read when I was a kid literally had a question mark imposed on Pluto because we knew so little about it. The fact that New Horizons could show us so much and then show...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/New_High-Resolution_Earthrise_Image.jpg/1024px-New_High-Resolution_Earthrise_Image.jpg <<An earthrise that might be witnessed from the surface of the Moon would be quite unlike moonrises on Earth. Beca...