Starship Asterisk*

Well done makc, i searched edge on but just couldnt be bothered haha.

How do you guys select an apod to run for next round? I just made a script that opens up random apod, and keep running it until I see something... well, for this one I will go with our proved method of small crop:

Gotcha

Would it be possible to post your "Random APOD" script, or something like it, to the Asterisk so that others can jump hyperspace-style through APOD's archive? I note that some of APOD's mirrors have this capability but NASA's APOD does not. One realization of this would to just have a "Random APOD" button that opens up a new window with a randomly chosen APOD. I don't know if this is doable within an Asterisk post. If so, we could stickify it at the top of the one of the forums.

That gives me an idea. I could do this on my web server.

Coding time!

Random APOD (Javascript version, use this)
Random APOD (HTML version, doesn't work well with browser caching)

Won't work right during some hours as APOD doesn't use UTC. It may give you "today" by UTC but APOD is still "yesterday". I should imagine that to be fairly rare, though.

I used to host PHP Random APOD script for years but that domain expired. So now it sits at http://127.0.0.1/

The Javascript code is here if anyone wants to use it locally.

makc's PHP version is more elegant than mine (and should be used as first preference), but won't work on some servers (such as mine!) which don't let PHP play with headers. Code for that is here.

What is it?

Though maybe not.... hmmmm....

HA!! No, it's this one! That was clever of you; kudos!

I'm so curious to know how you found that!
the picture was so tricky, great job mark.

Well done owlice. Very Very well Done.
yes Amir, I thought that was hard to.
Mark

My unsuccessful attempt (first link) was through the search feature, to look for "ocean" and then looking through the results of the search to match color. I also searched on "earth," "methane," "false color," "hydrogen" (yeah, THAT'LL get some hits, and how!), and a few other terms.

Gave up and went back to looking through APODs, one month at a time, to match color.

I asked Chris if he would please do the next What is it? and he has graciously agreed.

Identify the APOD from which this image fragment was taken.

Chris Peterson wrote:Identify the APOD from which this image fragment was taken.

This is just what you did last time...
make a selection that has the same texture of the previous Space mystery object.

I ain't fallin' for that one again!

I think I saw that back in the 60s, illuminated by "black-light", on the ceiling of a club. But I can't be sure; there was some funny smoke in the air at the time.

Rob

It's a toughie; still working on it!

owlice wrote:It's a toughie; still working on it!

That's the idea. I got tired of seeing the answer appear five minutes after the puzzle was posted! Thought I'd try to give more folks a chance.

I knew you'd post a good one, but was not expecting to be sooooo right!

It's a...

Dang!! I just got it, too! Now will look at makc's to see whether it matches. Dangfraznabbit!!!!!!

ETA:
::falls over laughing::

makc, that's great!!!

So that orange thingy is really Betelgeuse.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990605.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090805.html

It's enough to give one a quilt complex.

neufer wrote:So that orange thingy is really Betelgeuse.

Yup! Or at least a very small version of it.

If placed at the center of our Solar System, [Betelgeuse] would extend past the orbit of Jupiter.

I remember reading that sentence in APOD and having to pick my jaw up off the floor. That's one big star!

owlice wrote:I remember reading that sentence in APOD and having to pick my jaw up off the floor. That's one big star!

Hey owlice,

Check this out.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... -suns.html

This blows me away.

Mark