APOD: Sideways Orion Over Snowy Ireland (2010 Dec 26)

[APOD Robot]

Sideways Orion Over Snowy Ireland

Explanation: Orion always comes up sideways ... and was caught in the act earlier this month over a snowy landscape in Donegal, Ireland. To compose this serene picture, the photographer found a picturesque setting to the east, waited until after sunset, and then momentarily lit the foreground with a flashlight. The three bright stars in Orion's belt stand in a nearly vertical line above the snow covered road at the bottom. Hanging from his belt, the stars and nebulae of the Hunter's sword are visible lower and to the right. Yellow-orange Betelgeuse is the brightest star on the image left. As winter progresses in Earth's northern hemisphere, Orion will rise earlier and so appear continually higher in the sky at sunset.

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[León]

"Tomorrow, if all literature was to be destroyed and it was left to
me to retain one work only, I should save Job." (Victor Hugo)
He (ÉL) made the Big Dipper, Orion and the Pleiades and the chambers of the south. Job 9:09
Just south of Ecuador and ideal to be observed from both hemispheres
We now, in mid summer, with positions reversed with respect to north, have in the south of the Pleiades, Orion, Betelgese, Sirius in all its glory, in the zenith at midnight when it enters the new year

Click to view full size image

Down in the position noted Orion pocketing in Western

Click to view full size image

[Giovanni]

Why have you choosen an orrible quality picture like that?

[neufer]

Sideways Orion Over Snowy Ireland

So, O'Ryan really is Irish then

[c]Finnegans Wake: Page 185

Demum ex stercore turpi cum divi Orionis iucunditate mixto,
cocto, frigorique exposito, encaustum sibi fecit indelibile
(faked O'Ryan's, the indelible ink).[/c]

[owlice]

frigorique exposito

Should be frigorique exquisito, I think.

[biddie67]

I love this view of a mysterious little lane - so "down to Earth" with all that formidable space and many stars overhead - I can just hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of the crisp snow underfoot.

Neufer ... good grief .... strained my synapses trying to research and decode the "demum, etc." phrase above. Joyce was an obvious genius with magnificent verbal/lingual agility but what the h@!! was he saying? I think that he was slightly mad and tripping on some special hallucinatory tea as he wrote this .....

[NoelC]

Why have you choosen...

If you haven't got something positive to say consider saying nothing at all, because you need to understand the value of your comment is also negative in addition to its tenor.

Personally, I think it's a nice picture. I wish I had skies dark enough that I could see things so well in the sky. Where I live it's Bortle level 1. And it never snows.

-Noel

[cmflyer]

I wonder why APOD enlarged the photo so much, which accentuates the noise from the Canon 1000D. I'm not sure what the vertical noise stripes are. I'm now intrigued to try a similar exposure with my Nikon D5000 to see if there is a difference. It's a tough shot anyway with a consumer dSLR because if you don't want to stretch the stars, you need the high ISO, and thus you get noise.

[lenka]

O! familiar sight:) I like Orion, though I havn't seen for a long time.. still snowing.
Good to see it here:)

[skippy]

Wow, I am just so impressed by this picture, I mean, the utter complexity of the meaning of orions belt risung sideways in a somewhat out of focus snow covered field, well, it just boggles the mind

[termo]

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my first APOD.

Brendan

[owlice]

Brendan, it's a lovely photo; I was very glad to see that it became an APOD! Congratulations!

Winter Stars
by Sara Teasdale

• I went out at night alone;
  The young blood flowing beyond the sea
  Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—
  I bore my sorrow heavily.
  
  But when I lifted up my head
  From shadows shaken on the snow,
  I saw Orion in the east
  Burn steadily as long ago.
  
  From windows in my father’s house,
  Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
  I watched Orion as a girl
  Above another city’s lights.
  
  Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
  The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,
  All things are changed, save in the east
  The faithful beauty of the stars.