Starship Asterisk*

With photos similar to this one, please let me know if it would be possible to list the date and time the photo was taken with the information at the top of the Discuss page. Thank you.
Tom Hoffelder

(Astronomy) the scientific study of the individual celestial bodies (excluding the earth) and of the universe as a whole. Its various branches include astrometry, astrodynamics, cosmology, and astrophysics.... and I thought the airplane was bad.... and why am I reminded of what the NASA head honcho ...

Astronomy?

Received in an email from Dr. Nemiroff: We generally don't post photoshopped montages, but we do make mistakes on occasion.- RJN

Hope it is OK by him that I put it here, but I think it is good to know.

tom h

Chris, I'm on your side. ("I don't think it should be on APOD at all.") I'm talking about the person who "gave credit" to APOD. I still don't think APOD people knew what the photo was. I think (and hope) that they would have said a little bit more in the description if they did k...

I guess honesty has become a relative term. "..exposures tracking Earth and sky were made separately" is beyond vague to those of us who never expected to see a photo like this on APOD. I really can't believe they published it with only those words, knowing the whole story. Do they ever re...

Changing the subject somewhat, the sky portion of the photo could have been "flipped" to put Sgr in the southwest, over Lassen. It still would not have been reality, since the Milky Way would then be curving up over the photographer if that is where Sgr actually was, but it would probably ...

I really want to know 1) did the APOD people know the whole story, and 2) if not, why not? If they did, and published it with no explanation, we all need to recalibrate our concept of what we expect here. I guess I mean people like Chris and I do...

Amen! Thank you Chris!
tom hoffelder

According to the photographer's website, the photos were taken at the Golden State Star Party this year, which was held late June near Adin CA. Adin is about 60 miles east and 10 miles south of Shasta. For Sgr to be over Shasta, Sgr would have to set north of due west. As you know, Sgr sets in the s...

I spent some time in the area in the 90's, but yesterday when first seeing the photo I had forgotten that Shasta is north of Lassen. And not knowing exactly where the photo was taken, I thought maybe Shasta was south and the photographer was to the west of the mountains, looking east. That resulted ...

Beautiful! But to me confusing. It looks like Sgr is over Shasta, but Shasta is north of Lassen. Never mind. I reread, and it says "Earth and sky were made separately." Still beautiful, but not nearly exciting, realizing it was not something that could be actually seen.