Starship Asterisk*

I have often wondered why we have put so much emphasis upon a manned trip to Mars with little said about a more developed lunar station. Is there a reason I have missed? Well that would depend on who "we" are. I naturally assumed based on the subject of today's APOD that "we" is...

They said the utter lack of haze and the barren landscape made distances very hard to judge. This razor sharp photo illustrates that quite well.

Eric

I love the crafty Lovecraft reference in yesterday’s pointer this phot. One of my favorite stories of his!

Eric

I wanted to bump this forward as it was posted late last night in yesterday’s APOD… Re: APOD: Venus and Mars: Passing in the Night (2022 Mar 29) Several of you have asked about Neuffer. Sadly, I have this to share. It was posted by his son in the Shakespeare Google Group earlier this month on March ...

Several of you have asked about Neuffer. Sadly, I have this to share. It was posted by his son in the Shakespeare Google Group earlier this month on March 4: Hi all, I wanted to let you know that my dad Art Neuendorffer died peacefully this afternoon after his health quickly deteriorated last week....

What’s causing the unusual spike pattern with Venus?

Eric

Very apropos that it is an hourglass shape! . . . Eric Ahh, you are a person focused on the night. To a daylight-focused person, it looks like a bulge. :-) Okay, honestly, regardless of whether you pick day or night, the long-term pattern for Mid-Latitude day/night lengths is: DayLengthMidLatitudes...

do I get it right: in the posted 360°panorama a shadow from the moonlight is casted on the snow seemingly toward the source of the light? WhaleAurora_Strand_1500+.jpg The shadow was created from a wide flash that was used to illuminate the photographer and foreground during the exposure. The time e...

Very apropos that it is an hourglass shape! “ Yesterday was an equinox -- when night and day were equal “ Let me fix that… “Yesterday was an equinox -- when night and day were almost equal “ Much better. The refraction of the sun by the atmosphere adds a few minutes, give or take, depending on your ...

This will be a tasty target for the Webb.

BTW has anybody seen the latest images from the Webb? She is coming along beautifully!

Eric

Welcome to the Outer Limits…

Beautiful work yet it also manages to make the universe seem rather creepy…

Eric

Stunning pic Chris.
Thanks for sharing!

Eric

Staring into that inky black is exhilarating, awe inspiring and frightening all at the same time. You look at it and it looks at you (Nietzsche was right). Ann, is that “marble” from the moon? I wish people would quit complaining about it being a repeat. There ate great shots that deserve to be seen...

My favorite quasar image… https://external-preview.redd.it/gGEmZqTZKP4J55BXpj4jYFadgxEIsw32ZLd4UwsywDY.jpg?auto=webp&s=5e5999252ac5eee42c9df3c40ca47cc2533d7cdd “This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture may trick you into thinking that the galaxy in it — known as UZC J224030.2+032131 — has n...

https://i.imgur.com/opxyf69.png Does anybody know if that beautiful bright golden star to the left in the photo is H14511? HD 14511, yes. An 8.8 magnitude G5 star¹ at 444 parsec (1448 light-years) distance, as derived from Gaia data . (Previous estimates put it farther away.) [¹ thought to be a bin...

The image is three degrees across which illustrates that the full moon at about one half degree would fit neatly in between all three clusters. This gives you a nice idea of the size of this beautiful triplet in the sky!

Eric

Hi,
Does anybody know if that beautiful bright golden star to the left in the photo is H14511?
Thanks!

Eric

Fascinating, it even appears to have four legs!

Eric

So, I was on this bus. 🚌 It may have been November, and it was getting dark. ⬛ There was a young couple on the bus, a boy and a girl. 👫 Suddenly the girl said to the boy, Look at the Sun. 🌞 And I looked. There it was, the Sun, round and yellow. And I thought to myself, dreamily, There is something ...

If you crank up the saturation the violet and red really pop out. Beautiful image either way.
You live in a beautiful country Ann!

Eric

I wonder which direction do we see eta carinae from. Are we looking down on one of the nodes or towards the middle? We are looking more or less towards the middle (the actual stars of the system can’t be imaged behind all the dust.) The slightly larger looking brighter lobe is closer to Earth (it’s...

God, what beautiful work!

Eric

happy-kitten-kittens-5890512-1600-12001-1024x768.jpg Beautiful marble Earth; Best place in the Solar System: Glad I live here! Kitty think so too! :lol2: Another reason to hang out on Earth until of course the dawn of star kitty… https://www.wheninmanila.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Darth-Kitten....

Wow, Just look at that gorgeous green belt of vegetaion and how Madagascar (an island only well known because of it being a province in Risk™️) is covered with it not to mention the gorgeous white water clouds. You know I get wanting to explore Mars in person for a year or two (I would todo it!) but...