Starship Asterisk*

I’d like to know the vertical exaggeration of this render. Apparently, I need to have an Instagram account to view details on the source image. The Instagram post only says "I have created an image of the Moon with increased relief contrast by several tens of times". An exact factor is no...

Love today's image! Unique processing of real data gives an entirely new perspective. I'd love to see the far side. The South Pole-Aitken basin is apparent but subtle in global images of the far side, once you know it's there. It would be fascinating to see how it affects smaller-scale topography , ...

Wow! That Astrosphere is really well done! Thanks for the additional info. I was wondering what planet the black sphere with the red spots was supposed to represent!

No one seems to be discussing the fact that the Wolf-Rayet star is noticeably offset from the center of the bubble. Does anyone know the explanation for this? High proper motion? Compression on one side? Something else? Or is this an open topic of research? Maybe it's not too late to start a doctora...

I love this title, and I am thinking of submitting to the IAU that we rename Earth to "Planet of the Goats".

About nine seconds into the flight, I noticed that the legs rotated 90 degrees clockwise (as viewed from above). It seemed pretty precise, so I imagine that was a deliberate test. There was also a slight drift to the left, which looked less deliberate. I haven't seen any discussion of either motion...

About nine seconds into the flight, I noticed that the legs rotated 90 degrees clockwise (as viewed from above). It seemed pretty precise, so I imagine that was a deliberate test. There was also a slight drift to the left, which looked less deliberate. I haven't seen any discussion of either motion ...

Why wasn't the recording of the sound of Ingenuity flying released? They've got a microphone on the rover, use it! I was wondering this too. Just guessing, but it was very far away from the rover, and sound doesn't carry all that well in the thin atmosphere. On the other hand, sound is useful engin...

You're not going to run into many astroimages that are not "composites". Indeed, your average phone camera constructs its images from processed stacks of separate images shot at different times and different exposures. How is that any different? Chris, you're being pretty disingenuous her...

I like coffee. And I like tea. But I do not like them mixed together. Agreed........ The are making waaaaay too many "composites" lately. I get weary of their photoshopping.......... You're not going to run into many astroimages that are not "composites". Indeed, your average ph...

While not something our eye can see, a shot like this reveals a reality that, nevertheless, exists. I'm actually with Holger on this one. This is not a matter of enhancing details normally invisible to the eye. It's a matter of adding something that was NOT THERE. One can't track the sky without sm...

I like coffee. And I like tea. But I do not like them mixed together. While not something our eye can see, a shot like this reveals a reality that, nevertheless, exists. Well said! Indeed, I feel people get too hung up on “what the eye would see” to enjoy all the different ways in the spectrum of e...

sees with a camera located between its two dark eyes

So wait, if the two glowing circles are not camera lenses, in what way are they eyes? Seems to me the eye is the camera located in the middle. Which begs the question, what are the glowing circles?

tEH sNORK wrote:What's with the weird link to the taco dog?

I wondered if maybe the Imgur image had been changed after it was posted, but this makes a kind of odd sense. The dog is in disguise and has thus "changed his appearance", which is the hyperlinked text.

Each equatorial plane is perpendicular to its respective axis. So you know that the plane of the galaxy is at a huge angle to the ecliptic, if you've ever seen the plane of the galaxy traverse the sky in a more-or-less north-south direction on summer evenings. I always resented that the galactic cen...

Craine wrote:

illexsquid wrote:What... no Magrathea comments?

Sorry, but until somebody invents an Improbability drive, Margrathea's existence remains fiction.

So it seems I've put the cart before the... uh... dang it, Chris!

What... no Magrathea comments?

I kept waiting to find out if the brother ever found his lens cap.