Starship Asterisk*

NGC 3521 in Leo displays a two tiered spiral structure (like a spring) and has a smokey halo composed of inner billowing star clouds and a very faint outer halo and shell structures
See a larger file size here: http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/ ... 8/original

A higher contrast stretched view highlights the faint outer halo and shell structures
http://m1.i.pbase.com/o9/29/633929/1/15 ... trim50.jpg Copyright: Michael Sidonio

NGC3729、NGC3718、Hickson 56 (Arp 322) galaxy group
Copyright : Savio Fong
http://www.Astro.hk

The group of 5 galaxies below NGC 3729 is Hickson 56 (aka Arp 322). The Hickson 56 group is a background group of galaxies that is 400 million light years from us - 8 times farther than the foreground group of NGC 3718 and 3729. 4 of the 5 galaxies appear to be interacting and linked together. The 5th galaxy (Hickson 56A) is an edge on spiral galaxy.

http://old.astro.hk/photo/NGC3729NGC3718.jpg

The Temple
http://www.alexandrosmaragos.com
Copyright: Alexandros Maragos

The Milky Way over the Temple of Poseidon, at Cape Sounio in Athens, Greece.


The Milky Way over the Temple of Poseidon, Sounio by Alexandros Maragos


The Milky Way 60km south of Athens, Greece.
http://www.alexandrosmaragos.com
Copyright: Alexandros Maragos

The Milky Way over the island of Patroklos in the Saronic Gulf,
60km southeast of Athens, at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula in Greece.


60km south of Athens by Alexandros Maragos

Moonset in "Mainhattan"
Copyright: György Soponyai



Photo was taken on Wednesday evening one hour after sunset, when the waxing crescent Moon was descending to the Western horizon three days after New Moon phase. By standing on a bridge above river Main, the skyline of Frankfurt called "Mainhattan" acts as foreground of the scene. The Moon is shining next above Commerzbank Tower, the tallest building in Germany (259m).

Photo details:
2015.05.20. Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Canon EOS 5D Mark II + Canon EF 50/1.4
3 x 1/6 sec, F 2.8, ISO 500

Pale dots in the Cosmos
Full Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/133337700 ... res/Kv4msu
Copyright: Edinaldo Oliveira Tribute to Saturn Opposition this week.

In a rare opportunity, on July 19, 2013, the Cassini spacecraft when it reaches 1:44 billion km from Earth, he managed to capture the rings of the planet Saturn and our planet Earth (and the Moon). The unusual angle was possible thanks to the fact that the sun was behind Saturn, from the point of view of the probe. The planet blocked most of the light which otherwise would have been so intense that could have damaged the camera sensor.

In the image, the Earth and the Moon appear as tiny bright, visible dots between the rings of Saturn.

At the time, following a request from NASA, thousands of people worldwide waved toward the planet Saturn as the Cassini spacecraft was recording images of planet Earth, between 18h27 and 18h42 at the time of the Brazil / Brasilia. And yet, during the celebration, we were challenged to find Saturn in the sky, shoot and share your photo on the Internet. More than 20 thousand people around the world participated.

Compared to the picture of Saturn, we can see that these two planets are but a small spot in our solar system. Now imagine these two points on a much larger cosmic scale, they probably "would disappear" through the wilderness.

The probe image was obtained at NASA's assets in:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/image ... ageId=4868

SH2-132
http://skymonsters.net/immagine.php?img=SH2-132.jpg
Copyright: Nicola Montecchiari

Rise of Jupiter Timelapse Video was recorded on January 23, 2015 from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of the Balearic Islands (Palma de Mallorca). In the video you can see three astronomical effects:

1. Extincion. At the beginning of the movie, when observed field-of-view (FOV) is close to the horizon, only Jupiter itself is visible. The width of the air is thicker when looking close to the horizon than looking to the zenith. The huge amount of air makes faint object invisible. One by one, consecutive Galilean satellites appear, as they have consicutive lower brighness. Finally faint background star appears.

2. Color change. The image of Jupiter is more reddish at the beginning of the movie. It is caused by fact, the atmosphere scatters more efectively the blue part of the light. That's the reason why the Sun during sunset is red also, and the sky is blue during a day.

3. Refraction. When looking near the horizon, apparent altitude of observed object (stars, planets) is higher than if the Earth would have no atmosphere. The light beam from lower objects is curved due to the different refractive index on different layers of the atmosphere. As the telescope was tracking Jupiter with the constant angular velocity (the telescope was pointed on the position of Jupiter as without the atmosphere), the refraction caused shift of Jupiter image in the FOV.

Also during observations the airplane occults Ganimedes for a while.
The second part of the movie is a free reference to the last part of the 2001: a Space Odyssey movie.
Note that the timelapse was created solely with the IDL software.

The timelapse was made by Maciej Zapiór. The music was composed by Juan Miquel Romero especially for the timelapse.

M13 Hercules Globular Cluster
FullRes/Data

Recording / preprocessing: by Frank Iwaszkiewicz
Image processing: by Nico Geisler & Frank Iwaszkiewicz

Best Regards Deep-Sky-Astro Team

Crux and Carina Nebula Date: 2015.5.17
Location: Liuqiu Shiang, Taiwan
Camera: Canon EOS 5DII
Optics: EF 24mm f/1.4L II-> f/2.8
Exposure: 13 sec x 45 at ISO3200

Copyright: Hung-Hsuan Yen
https://www.facebook.com/redscosky

The Dreadful Beauty of Medusa
Credits: ESO
An article: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1520/ http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=243557#p243557

Milky Way from Kitt Peak
Copyrights: Michael West Milky Way and bioluminescent phytoplankton
Copyrights: James Garlick Pale dots
Credits and copyrights: NASA (Earth from Saturn); Edinaldo Junior (Saturn from Earth) http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=243589#p243589

Sun (Perihelion and Aphelion)
Copyrights: Pedro Ré
http://re.apaaweb.com/perihelion_aphelion_2014.gif M94 - Starburst Galaxy
Copyrights: Leonardo Orazi
Larger size: http://www.starkeeper.it/M94.htm Milky Way from the Balearic Island
Copyrights: David Forteza Azcona Solar prominence
Copyrights: Alan Friedman M90
Copyrights: Bob Franke
Larger size: http://bf-astro.com/APOD/m90big.jpg IC2162
Copyrights: Roberto Colombari
Larger size: http://www.astrobin.com/full/181385/0/?real=&mod=

Solar prominences
Copyrights: John Chumack and Kayla Chumack ISS over Freudenstadt
Copyrights: Andre Bernhardt Milky Way over National Park Siete Tazas
Copyrights: Jean Paul Germain Lagoon/Trifid area
Copyrights: Fritz Helmut Hemmerich
Larger size: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fhhemmeri ... /lightbox/ October Sunspots
Copyrights: Danny Shannon
Larger size: http://i.imgur.com/XKaqSIP.jpg Galaxy’s snacking habits revealed
Copyrights: Australian Astronomical Observatory
An article: http://www.aao.gov.au/news-media/media- ... s-revealed http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34797

Saturn 05/20 EZ Storm
Copyrights: Christopher Go NGC 3628, the Hamburger Galaxy
Copyrights: Bruce Waddington
Larger size: http://www.oc-aisig.org/zenphoto/albums ... lrgb_3.jpg

Thin Moon over the sea of clouds
Copyrights: Kouji Ohnishi Young Moon and Venus set over Shark River
Copyrights: Mike Black North American Nebula complex
Copyrights: Kevin Covey RCW32 in Vela
Copyrights: Jason Jennings
Larger size: http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/display ... ld_resol=3 M5
Copyrights: Stuart Heggie Comet C/2014 Q2, NGC188 and IFN
Copyrights: Adriano Valvasori
Larger size: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128758169 ... 863635281/ Conujuncion: Jupiter, Venus and Moon over spring poppies
Copyrights: Guido Montañés Castillo

NGC 3166-3169
Credits and copyrights: Warren Keller, Steve Mazlin, Jack Harvey, Steve Menaker (SSRO- south, PROMPT/CTIO)
Larger size: http://www.starshadows.com/_img/image/g ... ll-res.jpg Hubble Observes One-of-a-Kind Star Nicknamed 'Nasty'
Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
An article: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... 5/21/full/ http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34799

Solar Corona and Lunar Corona
Copyrights: Marcella Giulia Pace Saturn opposition 2015
Copyrights: Flavio Fortunato NASA's WISE Spacecraft Discovers Most Luminous Galaxy in Universe
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
An article: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4593 http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34800

Antares
Copyrights: Michel L. NGC 7822
Copyrights: César Blanco González
Full size: http://www.cieloprofundo.com/cesar/foto ... O_2000.jpg M45 from down under
Copyrights: Marco Lorenzi

Halo around The Sun over Toluca, Mexico
Copyrights: Selin Alejandro Gonzalez Palomino Milky Way and opposition of Saturn
Copyrights: Tunç Tezel Plane over the Moon
Copyrights: Frank McHarg Jupiter on March 10th
Copyrights: Damian Peach

Eruption , Ursa Major & Milky Way
http://lucperrot.fr/
https://www.facebook.com/lucperrotphoto
Copyright: Luc Perrot New picture of the eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise
To the left of the volcano and a little above the horizon you recognize the of Ursa Major constellation (upside down because we are in the southern hemisphere) and not always easy to be observed by us.
On the right, a small part of the Milky Way which is struggling to illuminate due to the high brightness caused by the volcano.

Other pictures of the eruption :
and a video close to the eruption : https://vimeo.com/128465708

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

Copyrights: Sergio Kaminsky
One of the most beautiful galaxies in the northern skies.

Higher resolution and details on homepage here:

http://www.myastroscience.com/#!m63-sunflower/c2z

Saturn and the moon Tethys lower right at slightly more then three hours from its closest approach to earth ( Opposition ) on May 23rd, 04:51ut.

Lagoon Nebula
http://www.astrobin.com/182083/
Copyright: Carlos Archila

Ten years of Oppositions 2005 - May 23rd,2015, Ring angle tilt evolution. ( Center, Top left to lower right )

Messier 16 - The Eagle



higher resolution: http://bine-und-franz.de/astrophoto/obj ... tivoli.htm

Franz

Argimusco - The night sky and The praying Woman (labels)
http://www.dariogiannobile.com
Copyright: Dario Giannobile Between the Mediterranean sea and the volcano Etna, the upland of Argimusco stands towards the sky. An impressive and evocative place where different monoliths emerge from the ground. Recent studies demonstrated that the site has been used as a natural calendar in order to measure the seasons' cycle. In the next coming years the Argimusco could become the Mediterranean Stonehenge. Different shapes characterize the monoliths like the praying woman a here in the foreground that seems to pray to Venus.

Argimusco - The night sky and The praying Woman
http://www.dariogiannobile.com
Copyright: Dario Giannobile Between the Mediterranean sea and the volcano Etna, the upland of Argimusco stands towards the sky. An impressive and evocative place where different monoliths emerge from the ground. Recent studies demonstrated that the site has been used as a natural calendar in order to measure the seasons' cycle. In the next coming years the Argimusco could become the Mediterranean Stonehenge. Different shapes characterize the monoliths like the praying woman a here in the foreground that seems to pray to Venus.

Argimusco - The praying Woman Monolith 2
http://www.dariogiannobile.com
Copyright: Dario Giannobile Between the Mediterranean sea and the volcano Etna, the upland of Argimusco stands towards the sky. An impressive and evocative place where different monoliths emerge from the ground. Recent studies demonstrated that the site has been used as a natural calendar in order to measure the seasons' cycle. In the next coming years the Argimusco could become the Mediterranean Stonehenge. Different shapes characterize the monoliths like the praying woman a here in the foreground that seems to pray to Venus.

Argimusco - The praying Woman Monolith
http://www.dariogiannobile.com
Copyright: Dario Giannobile Between the Mediterranean sea and the volcano Etna, the upland of Argimusco stands towards the sky. An impressive and evocative place where different monoliths emerge from the ground. Recent studies demonstrated that the site has been used as a natural calendar in order to measure the seasons' cycle. In the next coming years the Argimusco could become the Mediterranean Stonehenge. Different shapes characterize the monoliths like the praying woman a here in the foreground with the sky rotating behind her.

Dione before Saturn
This view was captured by the Cassini spacecraft on May 21, 2015.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriekl ... 7384175884
Copyright: NASA / JPL / SSI / Val Klavans