Starship Asterisk*

Ice halo with a NASA's scientific balloon above Antarctica
Copyright: Jeng-Lun (Alan) Chiu (Space Sciences Laboratory, UC. Berkeley)

- Date: 21:16, Dec 28, 2014 (UTC)
- Location: LDB site @ McMurdo, Antarctica

- Photo Description: A fantastic scene occurred when a "super pressure balloon (filled in Helium)" was launched for the first scientific payload - Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) from Antarctica in December 2014. A 22-deg halo, refracted by millions of randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals, appeared during the ascending process when a sudden fog was fading away. The upper and lower arc was also seen within ten minutes. The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF, a NASA facility) is now carrying out a test flight with a super pressure balloon, which was launched for a ultra long duration balloon (ULDB) flight around the world on Mar 27 from Wanaka, New Zealand. It's almost floating all around the world!

- References:
(1) Super pressure balloon : http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/spb.html
(2) Nature news for COSI launch : http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-launche ... on-1.16642
(3) COSI : http://hea.ssl.berkeley.edu/
(4) CSBF : http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/
(5) SPB flight from Wanaka, NZ : http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/newzealand/wanaka.htm
(6) News for (5) : http://stratocat.com.ar/indexe.html

Venus, the Hyades and the Pleiades

13 Apr. 2015 / 21:00 CEST
Copyright: Giuseppe Petricca
http://www.astrobin.com/users/gmrphotographer/
I used a Canon EOS 700D camera, unguided, on a tripod, with a 18-55 IS STM Canon Lens, at the focal lenght of 35mm. The resulting picture is a processed integration of 35x3.2" shots at ISO 800, with 15 dark frames.

Credits and copyright: Ezequiel Bellocchio (Pilar, Bs As), Aldo Mottino (Rosario, Sta Fe) and Carlos Colazo (EABA, Córdoba), ARGENTINA.

IC 4603 and IC 4604

SW ED80 + SW 0.85, EQ6, Canon 550Da, 32x600 = 5,3 hours, ISO: 800.
Copyright: Yuri Zvezdny

Big image here.

Pinwheel Wide-field
http://www.astrowimp.com
Copyright: Tim Christensen

A trip of 20 miles last night at 2.30 GMT to a remote site in Suffolk, UK to a unique beach which has been severely eroded recently leaving petrified trees out of the sand making the area look very Jurassic!
To get there I had to park up and get push bike out for the last 2 miles down a farm track and then half a mile treck up beach to reach said spot. I carefully checked tide times and astronomical darkness hours so as to get as much of Sagittarius as possible. A single 30 sec shot with myself in frame by the trees

For full res please visit www.shaunreynoldsastro,com

First potential signs of “interacting” dark matter suggest it is not completely dark after all
Image credits: Hubble Space Telescope
An article: https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=24341 http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34661

Violent methane storms on Titan may solve dune direction mystery
Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
An article: http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/04/ ... n-mystery/ http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34655

Winter panorama: Venus with the Pleiades, zodiacal light, winter Milky Way, airglow and various other
celestial objects
Copyrights: Emilio Diaz NASA to Celebrate MESSENGER Mission Prior to Surface Impact of Mercury
Image Credit: NASA (Artist impression)
More about: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/april/na ... f-mercury/ Milky Way over Rías Altas - the northern coast of Galicia
Copyrights: Dani Caxete
Copyrights: Stefano Quaresima JellyFish Nebula IC443 and IC444
Copyrights: Terry Hancock 2.5 Million Years of Light - Evolving from Home Genus to Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Copyrights: Miguel Claro April 4 - full Moon rising
Copyrights: Judy Underwood Jupiter in Cancer with M44
Copyrights: Daniele Cipollina

In the Cave, On the Beach
Copyrights: Mehdi Momenzadeh Venus and ISS passing the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic
Copyrights: Katharina Pietsch Gamma Cygni
Copyrigths: Roberto Colombari
Large size: http://www.astrobin.com/full/172613/0/?real=&mod= Venus and Pleiades
Copyrights: Karl-Gustav Andersson Finger-like Ring Structures In Saturn’s E Ring Produced By Enceladus’ Geysers
Image credits: NASA
An article: http://ciclops.org/view_event/205?js=1 http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34663

Star trails
Copyrights: Hamid Reza Sorkhian Cepheus
Copyrights: Raul Villaverde Fraile M84 & M86 Elliptical Galaxies in Virgo
Copyrights: John Chumack NGC32668 Hamburger Galaxy under the street-light
Copyrights: Roberto Bacci

Coalsack Dark Nebula and Crux

Canon 6D, 105mm, f/5, iso 1600, 29x240 sec

Big image here.

Copyright: Yuri Zvezdny

Have a Crux on Taipei Copyright: Hung-Hsuan Yen
https://www.facebook.com/redscosky

Great Nebula in Carina

This image is a Bi-Colour image comprising of Ha and OIII narrowband data.

The nebula is one of the largest diffuse nebulae in our skies. It is a spectacular object that is about four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula. It is one of my favourite objects in the Southern Hemisphere. Near the centre of the image you will see a very bright hypergiant star - Eta Carinae. Its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun. Within the large bright nebula is a much smaller feature, immediately surrounding Eta Carinae itself. This small nebula is known as the Homunculus Nebula. If you look carefully, you can see that this star is not round. This happened in enormous outburst in 1841.

Telescope:250 mm, F9 Ritchey-Chrétien configuration
Mount:Astro-Physics AP-900 Mount
Camera:SBIG STL-11000 CCD (-20 C)
Processing:CCDStack and Photoshop

M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

Details Photo
Mount: Losmandy G11 Gemini II (Kit Ovision)
Telescope: Takahashi Epsilon 180 ED f/2.8
Camera: Moravian Instruments G2-8300
Guide: Minitelescope Orion 50 + QHY5
Exposure: L=50x240 sec h Ha:44x600 sec R:12x240sec G:12x240 sec B:12x240 sec
Software: TheSkyX + Pixinsight
Clear Skies
Luis Romero.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/llromero/

Venus - Pleiades conjuction


Copyright: Rafael Schmall

Te Venus and Pleiades cluster conjuction is easy to see one hour after sunset. The hungarian cherrytrees are blossoming these days, and this is a good photo theme for this astronomical event.
I was used flash for brighten up the trees.

Picture taken: 04.10.2015. ~20:15 UTC+2
Exif details: Canon EOS 6D + Canon 28-105 f4-5.6 USM
- ISO2000
- f4,5
- 2sec exp
- 50mm

Observation location:
Hungary, Somogy, Kaposfő


Large size: http://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria/img/1429034728.jpg

http://rafeeen1.tumblr.com/

Orion Deep Space, M42 & Horsehead nebula
Copyright : Savio Fong
http://www.astro.hk

KP 8 aurora panoramics in Lapland (03/17/2015)
http://www.bastienfoucher.com
Copyright: Bastien Foucher

At maximum (my iOS app said KP 8.88/9), the aurora was far south : A bigger image can be seen here : http://www.bastienfoucher.com/Astrophot ... petite.jpg

Later, it came back to us : A bigger image can be seen here : http://www.bastienfoucher.com/Astrophot ... petite.jpg
A bigger image can be seen here : http://www.bastienfoucher.com/Astrophot ... petite.jpg

sun and bird. 150 % photogram of http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 12#p242412

M13 - The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

by Reinhold Wittich, http://www.wittich.com

In honor of International Dark Sky Week I headed out of the house about 2am the other morning. This is a 14 photo panorama of The Milky Way arching over the Millican Valley in the Central Oregon High Desert just outside the town of Bend. The Aurora Borealis can also be seen on the left hand side.

Shot by: Jason Brownlee Photography
Shot on: 04/16/2015
Settings: f2.8 iso 4000 25sec
Website: http://www.facebook.com/jasonbrownleedesign

Larger Size available to download here:
https://www.facebook.com/jasonbrownleed ... 9033381259

M109

by Reinhold Wittich, http://www.wittich.com

The Sombrero Galaxy

Copyright: Paul Haese

Click here for larger resolution image.

Full Moon fall in Venus Belt
Copyright: Kuan Chen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tataima/
https://www.facebook.com/kuan.chen.35/

Time: 2015/04/05 05:46 UTC+8
Location: Tainan, Taiwan
Optics: 18-55mm@18mm
Camera: Canon EOS M

That Wanaka Tree, Lake Wanaka, New Zealand

'One night in Wanaka' by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

This week is both National Park Week (in the US) and International Dark Sky Week. Here are two pictures taken in the Great Sand Dunes National Park -- one of the darkest places in Colorado. The first shows ripples of airglow going across the sky along with the milky way, the andromeda galaxy and the double cluster. The second is a star trail image - notice the stars reflected in the creek!

Sand Dune Air Glow
Copyright: Kathryn Neugent Sand Dune Star Trails
Copyright: Kathryn Neugent Higher Resolution versions can be found here:
http://kathrynneugent.com/AirGlow_bg.jpg
http://kathrynneugent.com/SandDuneStarTrails_bg.jpg

The data for this image was obtained by the KPNO 4.0 meter telescope.
Hydrogen Alpha filter for 10 minutes.

NOAO Survey Data
Processing - Kfir Simon

Larger image:
http://www.pbase.com/tango33/image/158923311

Thanks for looking!

Kfir Simon

Messier 109 with 30 hours

by Reinhold Wittich, http://www.wittich.com