Starship Asterisk*

The back button on this APOD entry is missing a page - it should go to the Earth/Moon pic but it misses that day .... Hal would not be amused ...
(It should go to ap150807 .. but its going to ap150806 - Also note the forward button is wrong too)

Ok, thanks for the replies .. interesting that some people are suggesting you can see the N.America nebula with bins under dark skies, I've seen most of the Messier catalogue with my ETX-105 but wouldn't even try for an emission nebula assuming only reflection nebula were visible .. perhaps with the...

Awesome image .. but isn't it a bit ambitious to suggest its visible in a small telescope? This is an emission isn't it, like the N.America nebula, so that's not gonna be visible in my 4inch f/14 for example... correct me if I'm wrong ...

But when I look through a telescope at the Moon, it seems both larger and brighter...? Larger but not brighter. Your eyes are the primary optics; the scope is secondary; which explains why a larger aperture scope yields brighter images; but ultimately you're actually losing light as a result of usi...

Thanks for the link and info alter-ago .. just gives more understanding of the scene for me .. exciting mission . . .

It's hard to say for certain without the exposure details of the individual images, but I wouldn't be surprised if we could comfortably see the panels and the dust jets in the same view. Ok, how cool would that be! And that was my initial reaction .. just upon reading the caption it makes me uncert...

I think I'd rather see the solar panels blown out and over exposed; that way you're looking at an accurate scene and the brain doesn't get it wrong, and I'd love to know how much dust is actually visible to the human eye. For example if you were onboard the spacecraft you could shield you eyes and d...

Sorry yes you are right about HDR, I've been doing single-shot HDR lately (very effective) and commented too hastily. But my point is regarding the average person who looks at this image - they are going to assume its one image; and assume that they could see this scene with their own eyes - which t...

It's artistic licence because somebody chose the exposure time to use for the dust layer. It is showing something which you would not see if you were there in person and it mislead me into thinking it was a single shot. HDR is different because the exposures are equal in length and I would much pref...

Yes what a beautiful image, I went straight to the large view and was struck by how bright and visible the dust and jet was, how amazing it would be to be there I thought. Then I returned and read the description and was disappointed to read: "In fact, two exposures, one short and one long, wer...

Yea thats crazy, amazing more examples haven't been captured .. . but is the significance the fact that your sundog appears to be visually right on top of a big thunder cell? Looks like a high altitude stack. Was that cloud producing lightning? And that makes it rarer? How often do you get a sundog ...

Firstly, I am sorry for jumping to conclusions regarding the purple nebula, I made an incorrect assumption that it was the same process as the Californian Nebula's Ha emission's, I stand corrected; nice explanation Ann :) And, thank you Rogelio for your detailed explanation too, the processing is fa...

I don't know if I've ever seen (or noticed) a purple nebula before, hmmm. My point exactly ... I'm not moaning about processing, all narrowband imaging has artistic input, I just think this one has gone too far, and thus you get confussion about purple nebulae ^ ! Why are they different? Because th...

I've been here before, and I will be unpopular, but my opinion is that these images are a bad idea. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this again is a graphical illustration - the Cali nebula Ha region is far too bright, superimposed upon a background... Why is the Cali nebula significantly brighter than ...

This is more what I mean tho, a 24/7 CCTV camera - "Canadian firm to put cameras on space station for live-time shots anyone can use": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44245864/ns/technology_and_science-space/ But need that to constantly cover the entire planet in wide-field, if a fireball happ...

I'm thinking of the images of perseids taken from the ISS this year (above the meteor: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110817.html). If a large fireball streaks across the sky then an all-earth camera network would have captured it, night or day, no debate. And, this network of cameras would also have s...

The Air Force space folks had already publicly stated that it was a natural meteor. Oops. That's exactly the kinda story UFO nuts want to hear, the government is lying or covering up, doesn't help... So, maybe not a Barringer sized object in our lifetimes we hope, but Tunguska? Over a populated are...

This conversation reminded me of a news article with a video from a few weeks back. http://www.space.com/12739-video-hypersonic-military-aircraft-flight-darpa-htv2.html "HTV-2 is part of an advanced weapons program called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems to...

Fair enough Tom : ) Again I'm sorry if all this has detracted from the praise which you are deservedly getting for this image. I'm really hard on myself with photography, always finding fault with my images and preparing to fix them on the next attempt, that's the 'motivation' I guess. Congrats on t...

Hi Tom, I know the re-sampling problem you mean but this is not the issue and I cannot fault APODs jpeg processing, looking back through you will find lots of very sharp images. The concept behind your image is excellent; its a fantastic scene, and obviously a superb location to photograph the night...

Hi Tom, I'm honestly not trying to discredit your work, but you haven't answered my question - "I would say the foreground Kiln images had a different sky which was removed with software, yes?" So to confirm you are saying the kilns are not 'cut-out' from their original background? I find ...

Sorry, just to justify my comment after reading the above explanation... I would say the foreground Kiln images had a different sky which was removed with software, yes? I can see the 'terminator' or the edge where its not properly blended. The biggest give away is bright foreground area on the far-...