Starship Asterisk*

Here is a link to a description of some former graduate students: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/nemiroff/FormerPhDStudents.html . More recently than described in that link from 2011, graduate students that have worked with me include Amir Shahmoradi (currently Asst. Prof at UT Arlington), Teresa Wilson (cu...

Thanks for the question! By "relativistic illumination fronts" I mean the dividing lines between light and dark areas that move with speeds close to the speed of light. Shadows, laser pointers, and supernovae reflections can all create relativistic illumination fronts. This has been a focu...

An opening for a new Ph D.-seeking graduate student in astrophysics is expected this Fall at Michigan Technological University. This is an unusual position as the student is expected to have a significant interest in developing skills both in research astrophysics, as relevant to my research interes...

It has been called to my attention that the image featured in this APOD, the astrophotographer, and sometimes the APOD itself, has been reported on in the media. Here are some links: Incredible Photo of a Sunrise During a Solar Eclipse Looks Like the Ocean Has Horns ‘Devil’s Horns’ Sunrise Photo Goe...

... website shouldn't be modified, other than maybe upgrading to HTML5 ... and adding IDs to some sections, like title or description. Wow, that's pretty close to my view! In fact, a few weeks ago, I created a minimal-change, HTML5-compatible version of an APOD page. It can be found here: https://a...

Editorial note: I added a link to https://www.psi.edu/news/bennusite under the word "mapping" on the main NASA APOD. The link describes the role of citizen scientists in mapping the surface of Bennu. - RJN

Another strange idea. Would it be possible to write a code (say, in Python) that ingests that current APOD HTML and outputs an HTML file that has all the useful semantic tags. Alternatively the output could be an XML file. Then Jerry and I could continue to write and edit (nearly) the same APOD HTML...

just my two cents, but it's more important to actually have some classes and ids defined within the html than it is to have the css file itself. Thank you. But why? Is it so that codes that ingest the HTML will better be able to figure out details of what information they are ingesting, like copyri...

OK so now after some email discussion with Jerry I have created an APOD page that - is HTML5 compliant - has minimal changes from the old HTML3 code - uses a CSS file (APODstyle.css) but will work without it That file is here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/fap/pagetest5.html . Please have a look. Criti...

Two more thoughts. First, I notice that the closed captioned sentences are usually not followed by periods. Is there something that can be done about this, or is this totally a product of the closed captioning software invoked by YouTube? Last, is it possible to turn this into a screen saver? I thin...

A lecture titled "The Best of Astronomy Picture of the Day 2019 & 2020" will be given by APOD editor Robert Nemiroff at the 2020 April 1 meeting (no joke!) of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA). The lecture will be given in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the early eveni...

A lecture titled "The Best of Astronomy Picture of the Day: 2019 and the Decade" will be given by APOD editor Robert Nemiroff on early Friday evening, January 3, at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) at the invitation of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York. This free...

On Tuesday, 2019 December 17 at 6 pm Pacific (9 pm Eastern), APOD editor Robert Nemiroff will give an online webinar to the Night Sky Network (NSN) titled "The Best of Astronomy Picture of the Day 2019". Details are available here: https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/event-view.cfm?Event_ID=1059...

No one knows how most "programs" ingest APOD's current HTML. Each individual knows how they did their own, but there are multiple ways to parse it, and it's impossible to know how each did it without asking them individually, or acquiring their code. Good point. So then ignore that request.

I've thought a bit more about this. Can anyone suggest minimal changes to APOD's current HTML3 template that would - bring it up to HTML5 compliance - make it easier for APIs to scrape copyright information - not break most programs that ingest APOD's current HTML3 - cite a CSS file that can make AP...

Videotizer -- Excellent! I have now downloaded that HTML code from GitHub and then uploaded it onto the main NASA server. It is available here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/fap/VideoLoopTest.html . It seems to run forever without errors or stopping! I had a quick look at the code but don't yet underst...

In response to emailed criticisms and discussion with noted astronomer John Kormendy, I have adapted the text on the main NASA APOD page. Specifically, I deleted the link to "density wave" under "wave propagating" since the (likely) outgoing wave is not a density wave. I have als...

Yes, so far this netlify player works for me too -- going well over 2 hours now! Can this be page be automatically updated to include the latest APOD videotized on YouTube? Can this page be hosted on apod.com or apod.nasa.gov instead of netlify?

Thanks Pawel, for your work, thoughts, and suggestions. You are right that many digital venues now ingest old APODs in their present format, and so if the format changed many of them would break. Also, I would like APOD base HTML code and usage software to be as ridiculously simple as possible. APOD...

My last experiment has now crashed -- specifically the looping APOD playlist on YouTube starting playing a video outside the playlist and not from APOD. I think it went "off course" between one and two hours. Here is an odd clue: the Chrome browser "back" button no longer pointed...

I still have not been able to figure out why YouTube APOD playlist loops stop. Videotizer pointed out that a Google search shows others have had this problem with other playlists in other contexts, but no clear solution has been proposed. I can now confirm that my home Mac ran into the same problem,...

By the way, Mr. Nemiroff, do you have control over old APOD pages on the website? Would it be possible to batch modify these pages to add HTML tags to some elements, like description or copyrights fields? Scraping and parsing pages would be much easier then. I do have control over old APOD pages, b...

Thanks, videotizer, for creating that short playlist. Running it has allowed me to confirm that the reason that YouTube Shuffles stop is not that all of the videos are played. Reading on the web, another possibility is that there is some rare mistake in the web connection that creates an error that,...

As reported, I just concluded a test with Loop off and Shuffle on. The answer is that the videos played for what might have been two hours, but then eventually stopped. For reasons I don't understand, the last video it played was 2019 November 19, which was not the last video in the playlist. One hy...

I am sorry but I am not familiar with Heroku pipelines. Can you give an explicit list of things that it would be good to do for the NASA APOD API, and why?