Starship Asterisk*

ah, the old country . . it takes me back to Enniskerry!

I just luuurve this APOD! . . . feels like being lost in space!

. . it's a totally "super-wow-awesome" collaboration guys, thanks for the high res panorama

neufer wrote:how else could they be assured that moat would never dry out.

One possible way they ensured this was by digging 'Öresund Wells' . . .

http://ia600300.us.archive.org/16/items ... Part_1.MP3

Ann, have you never heard of the saying, 'one should never judge a book by it's cover' ? But blue salt, hmm, that may be pushing it a little :) Me, I think I'll keep the salt-shaker clear of my hard disk . . don't like the thought of the grinding sound as the reader head trips over a 'boulder' of sa...

That's quite a scary thought for a dull, wet Friday morning in October; photons with a hundred billion times the energy of light! Thank goodness for the atmosphere surrounding us, guess we'd all be fried to a crisp pretty darn quick otherwise! Okay, 'stupid question time', from someone who is not an...

What I really want to know is, how did that little girl manage to get a hot-air balloon inside one of her bubbles???

I wouldn't pretend to understand all the science of the forces making this phenomenon, but on a purely aesthetic level, this is a totally beautiful image. Quite gorgeous how the light catches and highlights the molecular cloud. The blues and ambers could have been painted by an artist. It's like a b...

I find it interesting how some details are more apparent in the monochrome, while others are more obvious in the colour image. A good view of the first rock from the sun. Still trying to get my head round the idea that a day can be longer than a year . . really twists your melon! . . . hey!, it has ...

Today just so happens to be National Poetry Day here in the UK. I'm pleased to say that the BBC have marked the occasion by featuring Tomas Tranströmer's poem 'After A Death' and devoting some airtime to him on this evening's arts revue programme, 'Front Row'. Having not heard any of his poetry befo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERml-5aDEGQ Aw, that cheetah really is beautiful! Nice to see it so happy and relaxed. At least it looks to be living somewhere like it's natural habitat . . . more than can be said for the tiger (..sounds, to me, like it was filmed in a zoo - ugh!) Here's a clip of M...

Yeah, that is interesting to see. Good idea, thanks for posting your simulation. I think you pretty much nailed it.

The interplay of the radiating lines of green, purple and magenta, with the orange under-lit clouds makes this, for me, a truly arresting photo! Having a few clouds in the picture, together with the stars shining through, gives it great scale and depth. To think that this is a naturally occurring sp...

Thanks Ann for the insights; there's much more to this APOD than is at first apparent to my untrained eyes.
I have to admit, when I first saw this picture I simply thought, "Mon Dieu!, c'est plein d'étoiles!"

Had we but world enough, and time . . .

Laurent Lacote, your image does indeed please. It conveys such depth!

Larry Van Vleet, your image also. It puts me in mind of an eye in the sky.

Thank you both for sharing.

Great picture; the scale of that sunspot and coronal ejection is quite mind boggling! I am absolutely delighted because I have just managed to see this sunspot in reality, as it is happening on the surface of the sun, by using the ultra-careful method indicated by 'mexhunter' in his post on the Obse...

. . . and Orin's video post reminds me of this, which seems to fit quite nicely with the subject of this thread . .



been quite a few years since I remember hearing Burl Ives sing this . . . takes me back

Absolutely fascinating sequence! I've been trying to follow the track of the orbit that the ISS seems to be taking in this video; The first city lights could be around Seattle and Portland, then I'm pretty sure I can make out the lights of San Francisco and LA, on down the Gulf of California passing...

It sounds like a wonderful evening. And I was thinking exactly the same thing as Beyond, if the Swedish Tourist Board ever needed someone to promote their country, they really need look no further! Wish you could show us pictures of all those other things too . . . you have to get yourself a camera!...

I found this rare picture of the adult owlice moth . .

Amazing how these things can closely mimic the appearance of other creatures!

Beats me how they know how to do that!

Looking at this picture gives me a good feeling, like a shiver down my spine. It reminds me how firmly rooted my feet are upon this beautiful planet of ours, but looking up at those myriad points of distant light, it seems almost like we could fall into the deepest depths of space. It's like vertigo...

The Aurora are always lovely to look at! I agree. Orin, are you saying that you see the Aurora sometimes at your location? If so, have you ever tried to take any photos? Today's APOD is a very striking artistic composition. It would be nice to know something about the photographic techniques used t...

Just seen an amazing bit of Nasa footage via the BBC website . . thought others might like to see it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14998679

Reckon they picked today's APOD especially with you in mind Ann . . that sure is blue!

Much better than 'the seven sisters', from now on I'm calling the Pleiades 'the blue lagoon'

Beautiful picture Stanislav!

Ann, yes, you reminded me when you mentioned Helsingborg and the Strait of Öresund. Just a short ferry ride across the strait to Helsingør. I think we will have to forgive 'the bard' for a little artistic licence!

Nice pix!

Thanks Ann, some 'cool' information there! Yes, there have been some hard winters every few years, it's just that we do not seem to be as used to them in recent times as we were. I remember the recent winter of '06 it was unusually mild, we only had a handful of frosts (literally five or six!) the w...