Starship Asterisk*

Looks a bit like a screen-capture from a Space Invaders game from the early 1980s. Let's hope they don't misinterpret our intended meaning! Alternatively, it could be really frustrating if after 50 thousand years we get back a message saying the alien equivalent of "sorry, we didn't quite catch...

The willow trees over the stream by the house are bedecked with gorgeous silky cream catkins, like miniature furry rabbits feet; such a welcome sight, heralding the onset of a new spring!

Never ceases to astonish me how something so enormous and distant can appear so beautifully elegant from our viewpoint. They seem like small but perfectly formed islands; galaxies are wondrous things. Seen from somewhere over there, our own must appear equally captivating. Great image!

This I like a lot!

Beautifully composed and framed, it also includes my favourite constellation!

Beautiful ribbons of light in the sky!

I would love to see displays like these. Fingers crossed and eyes to the north, hopefully there might be a chance to see something sometime over the next year or two.

This is what a billiards/pool cue ball might look like when it gets really really really old . .

. . this one looks like it played one game too many

Just been enjoying another early morning viewing of majestic Saturn before dawn. Good clear conditions, with reasonably little atmospheric disturbance evident through the scope. It is such a simple pleasure to be able to see it, it never fails to make me smile. . . . wait a moment, was that a space ...

snow.jpg Temps have been at freezing or below for a number of days this week, getting colder and colder, and then this afternoon the snow started. It's dark now of course, but this is the view of the garden from my front door . . . . . and it is still coming down! :thumb_down: I'm just staying put....

Last evening I saw the Moon, Jupiter and Venus in a straight line conjunction, starting more or less overhead and running roughly from the north-east to the south-west

Congrats Alex, it's a gorgeous shot. I was wondering about how this view must have looked to the unaided eye, but I think you kind of just answered that. Without knowing any of the exposure details for this image, I should imagine the camera has really brought out the colour and detail. The Milky Wa...

I wish I had a computer monitor that was 8000 pixels wide and 8000 pixels high!

What a beautiful planet!

Magnificent!

Congratulations to the photographer, it must have been a wonderful sight to have seen, especially on his birthday, very beautifully presented and now selected as his third APOD!

Oh, WOW! What a stunning picture! And it seems even more remarkable that such a gorgeous view should have been taken only last night . . how lucky we are to be able to see it so soon. Being quite a keen photographer myself, I can really appreciate the thrill that this photographer must have felt, kn...

Hey Ann!, yes Mars definitely had a visible reddish tinge, even to the unaided eye, but through my field scope it was really just a slightly bigger reddish blob, I couldn't make out any detail. Unlike Saturn, which was a truly magical sight. And it was indeed accompanied by Spica, almost, but not qu...

I opened the front door at about 6:45 this morning, stepped outside, and there before me, almost directly south, there were two pinpoints of light still showing in the early dawn sky just above the treetops. Thought it might be worth a shot, so I grabbed my only scope (it's a nature spotting scope, ...

Great start to the week. Beautiful image!

A 10 meter diameter hole . . that has to be some pin!

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/new ... mager.html

Reckon I'll stick to making it from a beer can . . it has certain advantages

. . but I'll be sure to use the formula (oh yeah!)

What a brilliantly simple, but effective idea! I love this, thanks APOD. It's the sort of project every school child could be given the opportunity to try out, using materials that cost next to nothing. Things like this can really capture the imagination. John, try this web page . . http://www.pinho...

new seasons growth already 400.jpg Mid January and signs of the coming spring are really beginning to show . . . looks like the daffodils might be early this year! Orin, please don't take any notice of the old leaves these daffs are growing through, I deliberately leave them as a mulch to keep the ...

Orion has to be one of my favourite constellations! It's strong outline and relative large size in the night sky makes it so easily recognisable. Trouble is, I can find something to appreciate in many of the constellations, so having just one favourite is like having only one favourite piece of musi...

Ann, four consecutive nights of clear skies are pretty unusual here, but with the weather it's always 'swings and roundabouts'. I am certain you'll have clear skies when the mist and rain returns for me. I'm making the most of it while I can. :D Bystander, it isn't all that surprising that translato...

Beyond, I enjoy the music of the classical composer Claude Debussy . . it is a slight distortion of the title of one of his romantic songs for voice and piano, "Nuit d'étoiles", translates as "night of stars" . . I was describing the last few nights as being nights of stars. If y...

The last four nights have been excellent, clear nights; great for doing a bit of stargazing! I've been teaching myself to recognise some of the constellations I'm not so familiar with . . been getting good views of Cygnus diving down towards the north-west horizon at around 9pm, only to remerge 'fly...

Owlice, I immediately thought of 'The Knowledge Base' . . any good?