Starship Asterisk*

So you're responsible for bringing us this APOD? Right on. If you don't mind my asking, do you do this on your own, as part of the Hubble Heritage Project, or for work? No, I don't do this for work, nor as part of a Hubble work. Basically, I do this for my own pleasure, for curiosity, for interest ...

Hi Noel, thanks! Well no, I just have a common PC (Pentium 4 at 3.2 GHz), with 4 gigs of RAM and plenty of space on hard disks. Of course, a good amount of patient is required! The whole processing took some months of my free time. Layered raw file is over 16 gigabytes and it takes nearly half an ho...

Hi,

that is nothing of astronomical-related. It is just a reflection generated by a bright star that is out of the field of view.
Unfortunatelly, removing that kind of artifact is not an easy task, because of its size in the full-res version.

Cheers,
Davide

We are talking of http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050908.html

Nick confused this image with one of yours.
Cheers,
Davide

No, they are not artifact in mosaicing. They are airplane trails left during the exposure of the red channel. I tryed to remove them with just partial success.
Nickwright, you checked your original?? But we are talking of one of my color compositions!
Cheers,
Davide

They are light trails left by an airplane during the red exposure.

Cheers,
Davide De Martin