Starship Asterisk*

Bernard wrote:The physics of rainbows require the sun to be behind the observer, not on the left side. Therefore, this picture must be a superimposition of several shots.

DavidLeodis wrote:
It was sad to read through a link in the explanation that "Eric Nguyen passed away on September 9, 2007 at the age of twenty-nine".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Nguyen wrote:

<<Eric Michael Nguyen (January 2, 1978-September 9, 2007) was an American professional storm chaser, meteorologist, and photographer from Keller, Texas, United States. In 2008 Nguyen (pronounced "win" is the most common Vietnamese family name) released his first book of photography titled Adventures in Tornado Alley: The Storm Chasers with co-author Mike Hollingshead.

Eric Michael Isbell (last name changed to Nguyen after marriage) was born in Newport Beach, California near Los Angeles, California in 1978 and raised in Keller, Texas after his parents relocated soon after his birth. Eric was strongly interested in severe storms and tornadoes as a child and became heavily intrigued with mobile instrumentation systems for weather data collection. Eric began studying meteorology at the University of Oklahoma in 2001. He graduated with a BS in Meteorology in May 2005.

In 1994, Nguyen began chasing storms in Texas and soon expanded his range to the larger area of the central United States commonly known as Tornado Alley. Nguyen began publishing images regularly in Accord Publishing's popular annual Weather Guide Calender series, Smithsonian Magazine, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, as well as Weatherwise, Storm Track, UCAR Quarterly, textbooks, and other venues. His Mulvane, Kansas tornado/rainbow image is one of the most frequently licensed tornado images of all time and several other of his photos have appeared in publications and presentations around the world. Nguyen's storm and tornado photography was considered among the most expressive in the field, with a particular emphasis on unusual palettes and the use of foreground elements to create dynamic line structures in the composition. On April 21, 2007, Nguyen and his storm chasing partner, Amos Magliocco, were struck by a tornado in Tulia, Texas. Nguyen's scientific grade weather instrumentation survived the hit and measured the sharpest pressure fall ever recorded on Earth. Upon his death, hundreds of weather enthusiasts from around the world praised Nguyen's skills as a photographer and chaser in the online journal Storm Track The University of Oklahoma hosted a memorial tribute ceremony in the National Weather Center on September 22, 2007. The keynote speaker was Dr. Charles A. Doswell III. An endowed scholarship for graduate and undergraduate meteorology students was created in Nguyen's name at OU's prestigious School of Meteorology.>>

Case wrote:Usually the click-through image is of higher resolution than the embedded image. This time it is reversed: 900x1100 vs. 540x810 px. It seems the higher resolution version is a blow-up of the smaller one, and original aspect ratio wasn't maintained (a bit stretched horizontally).

RGWare wrote:It looks like powerline wires are down and the roof is off the structure. Are we looking in from behind the tornado after the funnel has passed?

Mikey wrote:That's what it looks like to me too. Zoomed in you can, definitely, see downed power lines going all the way across the circular drive. There, also, appears to be a snapped tree trunk in the front yard. Maybe the smoke column is the orphaned tip of the tornado as it receded into the cloud.

RGWare wrote:It looks like powerline wires are down and the roof is off the structure. Are we looking in from behind the tornado after the funnel has passed?

Thanks, RGW

drollere wrote:the APOD editorial team has really slipped down the slope of pretty pictures in recent months. i'd prefer that the team first asked themselves, "what specifically does this picture of the day have to do with ... astronomy?"

Bernard wrote:The physics of rainbows require the sun to be behind the observer, not on the left side. Therefore, this picture must be a superimposition of several shots.

neufer wrote:

bto wrote:
If you see a tornado, in your car--drive away from it at right angles,

That only makes sense if:

• 1) the tornado is coming directly towards you
  2) and there is a road at right angles.

APOD Robot wrote:The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado.

bystander wrote:
This is a real photo taken June 12, 2004, in Mulvane, Kansas, by storm chaser Eric Nguyen.
See this and other amazing storm photography on his homepage, www.mesoscale.ws.

http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheFoundation.html wrote:

• Jerry: Oh God.
  
  George: What?
  
  Jerry: It's Dolores.
  
  George: Who?
  
  Jerry: Mulva.
  
  George: I thought Mulva hated you.

bto wrote:This is completely lame.
Nothing to do with astronomy
seems to be the third time its used
so much NEW stuff, yet we see the same tired pics

BTW...If you see a tornado, in your car--drive away from it at right angles,

Q4: Have some APOD pictures been run more than once?
A4: Yes. Many of our readers have been with us less than a year and are unaware of some really spectacular or important astronomy pictures. New information about old pictures is becoming available over the WWW. The text and links for rerun pictures will make use of this newly available information. So although the picture might be old, some of the text and links of each APOD will be new. Also, more web surfers have larger bandwidth connections, which allows us to post higher-resolution image files that can be transferred conveniently. Software to handle more sophisticated image file formats has also become more common, so the picture's size and/or format might be new. Lastly, rerunning APODs saves us time and helps us update our archive. In general, our rerun policy currently is to only rerun APODs more than one year old to keep the pictures relatively "new" to new APOD viewers. We will almost never rerun more than two pictures in any given week. So when you load the current APOD,it is still, most probably, a new picture.

Boomer12k wrote:
Not mentioned is the column of smoke or something to the left of the rainbow. It looks like the spirit of a person facing to our left. The are leg, left arm, chest, shoulder, and neck and head, and the head has a helmet, all in profile. I am calling him, "The Guardian of the Rainbow", who protects believers from tornadoes!!!!

bto wrote:
If you see a tornado, in your car--drive away from it at right angles,

• 1) the tornado is coming directly towards you
  2) and there is a road at right angles.

islader2 wrote:
How is Eric Nguyen able to copyright==in 2004==a photograph taken a year {or so} later? What a perversion of Queen Anne's law!!!