Starship Asterisk*

I'm not annotating this image, because if I do, I will have to upload it to my computer. And once I upload it, I can't remove it. ... So any image I upload is going to stay in my hard disk forever, and this one wasn't worth it. Ann That's a mystery to me as well — why you can't delete image files. ...

The photographer, Pierre Martin, posted this same picture in the Spaceweather Photo Gallery on Sept 20. He included a relatively lengthy description of the circumstances.

https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_u ... _id=178039

Saturn was in conjunction with the sun on Sept 17, 2009, so on Sept 4, the day of ring plane crossing, it was a daytime object that would have been essentially impossible to see or image from earth's surface. Before and after Saturn disappeared into the solar glare, the rings looked like a thin brig...

Thank you, Ann, for your labelled version of this picture ! Without it I was confused. On a PC at least, mousing over the APOD image reveals the annotations. But I think this doesn't work right - or at all - on an iPad, for example. On my iPad, I was able to tap the image to reveal the annotations....

On a PC at least, mousing over the APOD image reveals the annotations. But I think this doesn't work right - or at all - on an iPad, for example. On my 12.9" iPad, a simple press on the picture takes you to the large version. However, if you press and hold on the picture, a couple of small box...

Deciphering the description to determine what's what (moon, shadow, "mutual event") in each panel pains me. Who wants to annotate it? Okay, here's my annotated version. I labeled the satellites as I, E, G and C for Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto respectively. When followed by an S, it'...

Deciphering the description to determine what's what (moon, shadow, "mutual event") in each panel pains me. Who wants to annotate it? Okay, here's my annotated version. I labeled the satellites as I, E, G and C for Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto respectively. When followed by an S, it'...

That's Andromeda! :D Thanks for annotating the image, because I'm not going to. Can't find the "W" of Cassiopeia! :cry: Ann Here's a version with some highlights labeled, including the "W" of Cassiopeia. ThreeNightsPerseidsLabel.jpg Joe Brilliant! Is that your own annotating wor...

Ann wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 11:33 am That's Andromeda! Thanks for annotating the image, because I'm not going to. Can't find the "W" of Cassiopeia!

Ann

Here's a version with some highlights labeled, including the "W" of Cassiopeia.
Joe

Of course, M31's satellite galaxies, M32 and M110, are also present in the picture. M110 floats above M31 while M32 is like a puffy star below-right of M31's core. There's another galaxy too, NGC 404, the "Ghost of Mirach," which is a faint smudge just above the bright star Mirach (Beta An...

A serene picture indeed! I have difficulties in identifying the stars. At first I thought that the bright star in the middle must be Capella and part of Perseus standing at the top right, a familiar summer view here from Denmark. But inspection of the high resolution image (which shows a lot of sta...

I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html). There's an error (typo?) at the linked page. It's actually NGC 6144 (referencing SkyTools, SkySafari and Stellarium). I happen to know this offhan...

I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html). There's an error (typo?) at the linked page. It's actually NGC 6144 (referencing SkyTools, SkySafari and Stellarium). I happen to know this offhan...

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:47 pm
I also have yet to know what "2dF" stands for even after following half a dozen links. Yeah, it's the first part of 2dFGRS, where GRF stands for Galaxy Redshift Survey, but nowhere is "2dF" explained. <sigh>

It's deja vu all over again? https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071023.html I wonder why the APOD folks don't clearly identify the weekend image replay as an encore presentation (no problem with that; they need a day off too). Every week we have someone seemingly surprised to find it's a recycled picture...

I would add that the Pipe Nebula also forms the hindquarters of the Prancing Horse amalgam of dark nebulae. The Prancing Horse can be seen in these APODs from June and April 2020... Above-left of center, from the southern hemisphere, so from a northern hemisphere perspective, it's "upside down&...

George wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2020 7:41 am >>> It's the H-II Transfer Vehicle-9 from JAXA
And why in picture HTV8?

I was wondering the same thing. This is probably the explanation…

https://iss.jaxa.jp/en/htv/mission/htv- ... towed.html

Great photo, but wrong caption. I live in Hong Kong. Jordan Road is a major street less than 1 km. from my place. I checked the index of a detailed street atlas. There is no Jordan Street. Jordan "Street" is probably just a typo and it should be Jordan Road. In fact, with Google Maps, it'...

Wait a minute : if the Moon [rose] after the Sun, it means it has already passed the Sun-Earth line... how could it éclipse the Sun two days later? The picture is upside down. The Moon rose slowly... then Venus rose and appeared to overtake & pass behind the Moon. Technically: the Moon occults ...

Fascinatingly, Comet PanSTARRS seems to pay regular visits to the Earth, and grow an anti-tail around May 23 perhaps every seventh year. Which "Comet PanSTARRS"? The Pan-STARRS survey has discovered more than 200 comets so far. In any case, the subject of today's APOD, properly designated...

What the picture and the text don't tell us is that the Crew Dragon was a couple of minutes behind the ISS. At the time, they weren't traveling alongside each other as one might gather from the picture alone . I actually saw these same two passes shortly before 10 pm EDT (UT-4) on May 30, 2020, from...

I just noticed that today's (29-May-2020) APOD photographer, Marco Meniero, is also today's EPOD photographer!

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2020/05/twil ... mical.html

I am sure that the term perigee does not correspond and must be changed for the apogee, in addition, the moon phase changed three hours after the apogee The U.S. Naval Observatory's MICA software shows lunar perigee (closest to earth) on May 6, 2020, at 03:03 UT1 and full moon on May 7, 2020, at 10...

It looks so beautiful. One thing I'm wondering - Closest to Earth on May 13 (so good chance we can see it during our night time), closest to Sun around May 27 (means we can't see it in our night time) but then someone predicts it'll be brightest in June means it'll get brighter after going around S...

What is the cluster of stars at left? I might be tempted to guess the Pleiades. But surely they are not so northerly placed in the Earth's sky? Ann I'm not that good at picking things out of star-trail images, but I suspect it's the Alpha Persei Cluster , roughly 40° from the north celestial pole. ...