Starship Asterisk*

Beautiful! This is exactly the kind of astronomy picture that I like. I can see that it is a true-color picture, more or less, but the colors are enhanced. My astronomy software is acting up, and I can no longer access the B-V indexes of galaxies. :evil: Does anyone know the B-V or possibly even the...

Well, wow. For once there is a planetary nebula image that I like. I wonder if it is true color. The star colors appear pretty good, although some stars seem to have a suspiciously saturated blue color.

Ann

Well, next time you see a cloud with a silver lining, remember that it might cast a shadow!

Fascinating image!

Ann

Hmmm, this is the kind of news I like! Interesting!

Ann

Went right past me. How about (1,000 to 2,000 kilograms) ? They converted incorrectly the other way. A 1.3 meter iron meteorite will mass around 10,000 kg. So the metric units were correct (as you'd expect, since these were in the original publication) and the conversion to pounds is what fell apar...

This IRAS 05437+2502 star cloud was yesterday's news. There is no new APOD for today. Why not? Has Otto gone on strike?



Ann

César Cantú's second solar image, which shows the three-dimensional "fur" of the Sun, is really quite nice! And Iván Éder's image of the Large Magellanic Cloud is very nice, too. It is unusual to see the LMC in its entirety, more or less, as we do here. Note the large star forming region a...

What likes mint? Me! Right now I'm nibbling on a delicious mint praline covered in dark chocolate. My best friend grows some delicious mint in her garden, and though I haven't seen any wasps around it (but there are hundreds of bumblebees around other flowers in her garden) her mint is so delicious ...

You know Iceland, don't you? An island all alone in the Atlantic Ocean, with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge right under their feet, with volcanoes going off and ash spewing out of their glaciers, filling the airspace over Europe with dangerous particles and grounding the European airplane fleet. Oh, and the...

Many celestial pictures look garish because the universe is, well, garish. Hot gaseous clouds of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen glow with the same intense color saturation you would see on nighttime stroll down the Las Vegas strip. That's what I like! :mrgreen: http://www.cosmotography.com/images/sma...

It's the Antennae galaxy all over! http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/46/videos/a/stills/3/image.jpg Gas-rich galaxy meets star-rich but gas-poor galaxy... check. Gas-rich galaxy bursts with star formation and curves in on itself in a sort of shrimp formation... check. Lots of star formation wh...

ElVis has left the nebula, leaving his V behind!

Elis has left the nebula!

Ann

I think it's pretty arrogant to assume we can continue to do whatever we want and the planet will take care of itself or that we don't need to assume the responsibility of stewardship of the planet on which we live. That makes 99,999...% of all living creatures arrogant, because they dont give a sh...

I have seen a BBC documentary about what makes the Earth habitable (would you believe it? :wink: ) The forces that combine to make the Earth unique and very habitable are, according to the documentary, the Earth's volcanism, its oceans, its ice, its atmosphere and something else that I can't remembe...

The Mount Man is pretty irresistible.

There appears to be no Face on Mars, but there definitely is a Mount Man on the Earth. And yet no one suggests that he was made by aliens. Go figure.

Ann

Rob, thank you for posting that link to possible causes for the internal heat of Neptune. If you can put up with my silliness, I must confess that I have a particularly soft spot for Neptune because of its blue color (well, I'm not called the Color Commentator for nothing). Favoring a planet because...

Ah, Neptune, the blue planet! Of course, it is no match for the blue planet!



Art???? Am (Bist???) I just stupidest or ignorantest?

Ann

That's a great image, and it becomes even better by its 360 degrees perspective.

Ann

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Crowd_awaits_news_of_Dempsey_-_Carpentier.JPG And of course, when ET lands on Times Square and ask people to take him to their leader, I will have to change my mind. In fact, it will be enough that several independent telescopes and amateur astroph...

It is interesting to see that while most of the activity in this colliding pair takes place in one of the galaxy, NGC 4038 (and of course in the bridge between the two galaxies), NGC 4039 has a few scattered X-ray-bright black holes, which are perhaps remnants of a more gas-rich and starforming past...

There is a 1-in-1,000 chance of this asteroid actually hitting the Earth? Hmmm. I seem to remember that not too long ago, there was a perhaps 1-in-25 chance of an asteroid or comet hitting another planetary body in our solar system, perhaps Mars or Phobos. I hoped it would hit, because it would have...

Thanks, Orin and neufer! neufer wrote: I'd be interested on your view of the Carl Sagan book/movie Contact. Contact? Ummm. I saw it perhaps fifteen years ago or so. I remember that it starred Jodie Foster. As for what else I remember of it...not much. :oops: But I think Jodie's character went on a s...

Art, you might as well ask him if he has his towel with him, too. I thought it was a better question than: "What does the T stand for?" (Ann could tell you it should be: "For what does the T stand.") No, it should be, "What stand the T for?" :wink: Like bystander, I to...

I hope I won't break any rules with this post, but if I do, I ask bystander or someone else in charge to delete it. I grew up with people with very strong beliefs. When I was eight I was told that many of them waited for the end of the world, which they believed was imminent. My grandfather was one ...

Wow-wow-wow!!! Look at that Crater Lake Panorama with star reflections in the lake!!!! A-mazing!!!

Ann