Starship Asterisk*

Copyright: Vinodiran Arumugam
Caption: This was a photo taken on a night of poor observing conditions on Mauna Kea a couple of weeks ago (21/8). The moon was high in the sky and full - or perhaps a day off a full moon - brightly illuminating the Mauna Kea landscape. You can see, from left to right, the Canada-France-Hawaii, Gemini, UH 2.2m, UKIRT and UH 0.9m telescopes. Celestially, you can see the Pleiades, the constellations of Taurus and Orion and the Orion nebula. The bright object seen next to the CFHT is the planet Mars. This all makes for what looks like a nice clear night and a lot can be seen even on a moonlit night.
I believe this might be an interesting APOD because of the response received when this picture was shown to people. The reason I refer to this as a night with poor observing conditions is that I was observing at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, a sub-millimetre telescope, and the weather conditions were deemed too bad to make observations for the program I was there to observe due to high percipitable water vapour content of the sky. This presents a rather interesting illustration for the difference in observing at different wavelengths i.e. what looks nice and clear in the optical is actually poor observing conditions at sub-millimetre wavelengths. People initially don't understand why I say I had bad weather until I explain this to them.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58618409@N05/9570874732/

I am as completely impressed as starsurfer of the many brilliant images here. My favorite has to be Rolf Wahl Olsen's image of NGC 6902 and friends. Indeed, as Rolf points out, very little has been written about this gorgeous galaxy, and it can't be found in James D Wray's otherwise reliable Color Atlas of Galaxies.

My software says that NGC 6902 is a barred galaxy of type SBa, which means that it has a large and dominant central region. Its B magnitude is 11.85, its U-B index is 0.090 and its B-V index is 0.710. These are normal values for large spiral galaxies with a reasonable amount of star formation.

According to my software, NGC 6902 is about 110 million light-years away and has a luminosity of 63 billion Suns, 2.8 times the Milky Way. I'm not completely convinced that these figures are correct, but NGC 6902 looks big. Its large, bright, well-formed yellow central parts and long spiral arms definitely suggest that this is a big, massive galaxy.

Wonderful picture, Rolf!

Ann

Moon Rise in Dark Sky
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92681330@N06/
Copyright: Daniel Pasternak©

Bruce Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada: Isthmus Bay Looking East over Georgian Bay
The Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada declared itself a Dark Sky community on Aug 23 of 2004? In essence this means that the Municipality realizes the unique beauty of the night sky as viewed from the Northern Bruce Peninsula and will now provide leadership to other communities in preserving it. This involves retrofitting existing lighting in the community to use dark sky friendly fixtures and also reviewing future developments in the community to ensure they also are dark sky friendly.
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) then designated the areas within Fathom Five National Marine Park and Bruce Peninsula National Park as Canada’s eight official Dark Sky Preserve in March of 2009. There are now 14 designated Dark Sky preserves in Canada as well as one RASC recognized Urban Star Park. The complete list of Dark Sky Perserves can be found on the RASC website. To meet the requirements of a Dark Sky Preserve, the area must satisfy the following criteria:
• No visible artificial lighting is visible
• There must be active measures in place to promote and educate municipalities on the reduction of light pollution
• Sky glow from beyond the borders of the Preserve will be of comparable intensity, or less, to that of natural sky glow.

old moon

Milky Way Panorama above AsRomania 2013 star party, in Romania. More details about the image: http://www.astrographist.com/gallery/sc ... nic32.html

Hi,

Today early morning I observed and photographed the rising crescent Moon from the Gellért Hill, Budapest, Hungary 32 hours before New Moon time. Last night the wind blew away the clouds, the dust and most of the humidity so the sky became crystal clear and wonderful. I found the Moon at the bottom of Eastern horizon 10 minutes after its rising time. Inspecting with naked eye the Lunar arc seemed to be continuous but the earthshine remained invisible.
Crescent Moonrise over Budapest
Copyright: György Soponyai

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanamonde81/9667992537/


As the Sun approached the horizon it slowly painted the black clouds red and purple. I took a panorama photo of this attraction: the bank of river Danube in Budapest is a World Heritage Site, I hope now you can imagine why..
Gellért Hill Panorama
Copyright: György Soponyai

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanamonde81/9668032395/
(The Moon is still visible here but it is really not dominating the scene indeed )


It was only 15 minutes before sunrise when I lost the Lunar arc: it vanished slowly behind a light red cloud -- 31 hours and 46 minutes before New Moon phase
31 Hours 46 Minutes Old Vaning Crescent Moon
Copyright: György Soponyai

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanamonde81/9667991555/

A bright meteor over Saint Magnus's Sanctuary
Copyright: Andrea Sangari



A bright, colourful meteor captured above Santuario di Castelmagno (Saint Magnus's Sanctuary), located at 1,761 m, Cuneo, Italy, on the ruins of an ancient Roman Temple.

alexconu wrote:Milky Way Panorama above AsRomania 2013 star party, in Romania. More details about the image: http://www.astrographist.com/gallery/sc ... nic32.html

http://www.astrographist.com/photos/scenic/32.jpg

I like this! Look at all the little astronomers under the vast sky. Or is that just equipment? I can't tell! I wish the image itself were bigger. I mean, I'm sure you have a bigger version, the supplied one is just kind of low resolution.

Orion Nebula and Reflection Nebula
http://www.justinngphoto.com
Copyright: Justin Ng
http://www.mopsg.com/forums/attachments ... marked.jpg
[attachment=0]justinng.jpg[/attachment]

The Orion Nebula (also known as M42) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. The nebula Messier 78 (also known as M78 or NGC 2068) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. This image was taken in Mersing, Malaysia with a total exposure time of 2 hours. Ha images were taken to boost the HII region around the nebulae.

geckzilla wrote:
I like this! Look at all the little astronomers under the vast sky. Or is that just equipment? I can't tell! I wish the image itself were bigger. I mean, I'm sure you have a bigger version, the supplied one is just kind of low resolution.

Thanks! Glad you like it. I have a bigger version, of course. An 110 MP one . I think only equipment is visible. People were constantly moving and they don't show up clearly in the image. I have other shots with people clearly showing, but they're on the edit queue.

Copyright: Harel Boren
Caption: I made a close-up version cropping away the less interesting parts, and leaving those with all the little details in color and lum, in an adjusted framing (I had to sacrifice the red-hood part though ).
Image details:
· Size: 1854x1747 pixels
· Shot from location: Kalahari Desert, Namibia, Africa
· Total exposure time: 4:00 hours HaRGB 60:60:60:60 / 24 frames of 10 minutes each
· Scope: Riccardi-Honders 8" F3 OTA
· Camera: SBIG STL 11000 M
· Filters: HaRGB Astrodon Gen II filters
· Mount and guiding: AP GTO1200 mount, guided w/PHD

Copyright: Angus Lau, Y Van, SS Tong - Jade Scope Observatory
http://www.jadescope.com/photos/i-XMnr8 ... r8xD-O.jpg
Caption: M42 Copyright: Anton Špenko
Caption: Yesterday I made a new image of Nova Delphini! 2013. It's not surprise that nova fading, but for me is much more surprise, that now Nova shines much more redish ! Both images are made with my 14 inch Newton f/3,5 and with 60 second exposure and ST8 CCD kamera trougt Astronomic LRGB fiters. Sure that I made the procesing in the exactly the same way.
Copyright: Luis Argerich
Caption: Here's a recent shot that I liked it, it's a single shot showing both Magellan clouds in a way that it is similar to what can be seen with the naked eye on a moonless night from a dark location.
The Tarantula nebula is visible as a bright cyan spot in the LMC while the great globular cluster 47 Tucanae can be seen next to the SMC. The bright star on the left is Achernar.
I took this photo on August 11th 2013 from Neuquen Argentina, once the Moon has set. I used a DSLR camara, lens and tripod.
Copyright: Eugen Kamenew
Caption: Being an eclipse chaser for more than 14 years, it has always challenged me to cross the boundaries of our materialistic world. As an artist, first, I´m always creating a vision in my mind. Once this vision in my thoughts is solid, then it is just a question of time that I will transform it into a reality. I always had a dream to combine an annular solar eclipse with human beings. May 10, 2013 gave me a perfect chance to fulfill it. A ring of fire was rising in Newman, Western Australia above the horizon. My amazing photo models from France spend all the freezing night waiting with me for this special astronomical event. The result of their strength and disciplined preparation is in the form of this unique photograph. It's a symbol for the whole mankind saying since the existence of our civilization, we, the humans have always tried to discover the new horizons and to reach for the stars. This singular shot is showing a remarkable astronomical alignment: our sun (the star of life), the dark disc of the moon, a couple and our home planet earth. A universal message reflect from this surrealistic photograph is: a new day, a new hope and a new dream for more peaceful world...

http://www.damianpeach.com/deepsky/c201 ... 9_01dp.jpg
[attachment=3]peach.jpg[/attachment]
Copyright: Damian Peach
Caption: Here is C/2012 V2 (LINEAR) from Sep 1st. This time a much better result in colour. A weak ion tail seems to be present. Currently the brightest comet in the sky at around mag 8 to 9. 20"CDK with FLI-PL6303e camera. LRGB. L: 8x2mins. RGB: 1x1mins. Shot during twilight with the Sun at -18 to -14 deg.

Copyright: Albert Barr Caption: I know you guys published a nice M31 recently but I wanted to submit this because I think I really captured a lot of detail. This is 9 hours total, 5 luminance and 4 RGB imaged with an FCT 150 and an SBIG 11000M, Mayhill, New Mexico Agust 30-31 2013.


http://cooledpix.files.wordpress.com/20 ... hiuchi.jpg
[attachment=2]stephenmou.jpg[/attachment]
Copyright: Stephen Mounioloux
Caption: June 1st, 8th and 15th 2013: This is my second light with the FSQ106EDX-III and I wanted to try to capture some nebulosity. It also happened that I had been waiting to shoot this region of the skies for years. I didn’t want to work on mosaic just yet so I decided to frame that very colorful area between Antares and Rho Ophiuchi. It’s got several types of nebulae, a few globular clusters and so much dust!
Considering the size of the region I obviously chose to use the focal reducer which with this camera and scope give me a field of just about 5×3 degrees.
My godson was on vacation here for about 10 days so I decided to just go for this target for a few nights (three precisely!) so that we could spend the time doing visual with his binoculars and Dan’s dob. Great times.
Then I’ve been very busy with the move that it literally took me over a month before I even touch the data. My processing workflow has not changed much since my last picture. I did find a nice way to improve my stars with a much better stacking interpolation. I also have to mention that the data was pretty clean to the point that there was very little processing to do.
Link: http://cooledpix.com/2013/07/25/antares ... -ophiuchi/
Tech info:
Camera: Moravian Instruments G3-11000 (Sensor maintained at -25 C)
Exposures: ~ 10 hours of integration time (L: 600 s – 1×1, RGB: 300 s – 1×1)
Mount: Losmandy G11 Gemini 2
Imaging Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106EDX III @ f/3.6
Guiding: Borg 50 mm – Barlow 2x – SX Lodestar
Calibration: Darks, Flats, Dark Flats
Stacking: PixInsight 1.8
Final blending/processing: PixInsight 1.8


http://astrofarma.gr/images/phocagaller ... C_6559.png
[attachment=1]antonis.jpg[/attachment]
Copuright: Antonis Farmakopoulos
Caption: Hello from Greece , I sent an image from NGC 6559 area. NGC 6559 is a star forming region located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Sagittarius, showing both emission (red) and reflection (bluish) regions.. NGC 6559, IC 1274-4685, B103-91 is located just one degree east of M8 (the Lagoon Nebula) and is probably part of the same large nebulous complex and star forming region NGC 6559 is the brightest patch of emission nebulosity.
Link: http://astrofarma.gr/en/ngc6559


http://www.martinpughastrophotography.i ... riplet.jpg
[attachment=0]pugh.jpg[/attachment]
Copyright: Martin and Karen Pugh
Caption: First week of Spring yielding good clear nights here in New South Wales, so
data gathering is well underway, however, this image has been two 'seasons'
in the making given I started on this in Oct 12.
The main galaxies here are NGC 7582, 7590 and 7599, but for me, it is PGC
71043 in the lower right-hand corner which steals the show..I just did not
expect to resolve all of those galaxies which appear associated with the
main elliptical galaxy (I assume that's really unscientific speak!?)
Over 33 hours total data with 17 hours luminance taken with the 12.5" RCOS
here in Yass.

Copyright: Keith Marsh
Copyright: Petra de Ruyter
Copyright: Tina Carpenter
Copyright: Raymond Kneip Caption: I’m an amateur astronomer from Luxembourg. By chance I read on the pages of the AAVSO that a GRB with an optical counterpart was discovered by Swift. Less than an hour after that detection I could use one of the telescopes of itelescope.net (T17 - Siding Spring) and shoot some images of this burst.
The first image I send you is a 3x300s image taken with a CDK 17” and clear filter.
The second image is a composition of the first one and three others taken with the R-filter at different times.
Maybe these are not very spectacular images, but I’m really happy that finally I could get one of these rare events.
You’re free to use these for the APOD-pages if you think they are suitable.

Magnificent Lunar Halo Glows over Malaysia
http://www.justinngphoto.com
Copyright: Justin Ng A composite image of milkyway and a moon halo captured in Mersing, Malaysia before the peak of Perseids Meteor Shower and during the conjunction of Moon and planet Saturn on 13 Aug. The milkyway wasn't really visible at this point as the sky was still bright but as the moon went lower, the milkyway galaxy became visible gradually and the entire process was filmed as part of my 12 hours timelapse at this location.

A 22° halo is a halo, one type of optical phenomenon, forming a circle 22° around the sun, or occasionally the moon (also called a moon ring or winter halo). It forms as sunlight is refracted in millions of randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere (Source: Wikipedia). You can see the moon halo with naked eyes too.

From this image, you can also see Arcturus (top right), which is the fourth brightest star in the night sky and it's the brightest star in the constellation Bootes. Planet Venus is visible in the bottom right and planet Saturn is visible near the top of the moon. Milkyway galaxy, which is a composite, is also visible when the moon was nearer to the horizon.

Andromeda Galaxy
http://www.justinngphoto.com
Copyright: Justin Ng
http://www.mopsg.com/forums/attachments ... marked.jpg
[attachment=0]justinng2.jpg[/attachment]

Andromeda Galaxy M31 along with M32 and M110. The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years (2.4×1019 km) from Earth in the Andromeda constellation. Also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, it is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, but not the closest galaxy overall. It gets its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which was named after the mythological princess Andromeda. The Andromeda Galaxy is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies. Although the largest, the Andromeda Galaxy may not be the most massive, as recent findings suggest that the Milky Way contains more dark matter and could be the most massive in the grouping.

Total exposure time 3.3hours. Ha images were captured to boost the HII region.

Object: Thackeray's Globules in IC 2944 - 7 Feb 1999 & 11 Feb 2001
FITS data obtained from Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA).

Processing by: Steven Marx Click to view Original FULL scale image (1465x712)

Rho Ophiuchi complex
Copyrights: Roberto Colombari Paul Wild Observatory's 25th Birthday
Copyrights: Jonathan Bradshaw South Pole of Mars
Image credits: ESA / G. Neukum (Freie Universitaet, Berlin) / Bill Dunford
More about: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-bl ... scope.html Bizarre alignment of planetary nebulae
Image credits: NASA, ESA, A. Zijlstra
More about: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1316/ Blue Light Observations Indicate Water-Rich Atmosphere of a Super-Earth
Image credits: NAOJ
More about: http://www.naoj.org/Pressrelease/2013/09/03/index.html

Solar transit, black drop, exoplanet
from the captive balloon in "parc André Citroën" in Paris (France) at sunset.

A fly is scheduled for Sunset each day. Four time a year we can catch this "transit" from home....

Copyright: Jean-Paul GODARD & Martine TLOUZEAU

Respective websites http://uranoscope.free.fr & http://mseclipse.free.fr
jpg&mtl

AstroTiermes 2013
http://www.astrotiermes.es
Copyleft: Jaime Fernandez
Lunar Picture of the Day (LPOD), 6/mar/2013 Artistic composition made of three different images:
- Moon, a four images mosaic of the crescent moon, 4,6 days old. Celestron 9.25 f/6.3 + Atik 314.
- Background, a two images mosaic of central galaxy at Sagitarius. DSLR 18/70 lens. (was Astronomy Picture of Day, APOD, 31/8/2010)
- Earth, based on Apollo 11 imaginery.

This is a tribute to all the amateur astronomers and astronomy groups which organize starparties, public observations, school activities, and many other to popularize astronomy, just for the love to astronomy and science.

Call me crazy, but it would be great to see published this picture as APOD. It represents the efforts of a group of enthusiasts volunteers to celebrate one of the most important starparties in Spain. Well, Iknow, it's not probably in accordance with APOD philosophy, or even may be considered some kind of spam (sorry in advance if you feel unconfortable with that). However, I do not remember any mention in APOD pages to amateur star parties in the past, so, why not try it?

Attending a starparty is the easiest way to get into amateur astronomy community, meet other people with same expectations and have the opportunity of test a variety of instruments that would otherwise not be possible. Many of us arrive to astronomy thanks to friends found in a starparty.

Throughout the year there are many all over the world. One of them take place during next weekend bringing together more than 300 amateurs from Europe to Spain: The VII Astronomy Days AstroTiermes 2013, to be celebrated from 6 to 8 of september in Montejo de Tiermes, Soria (Spain).

IC 1396 & Sh2-129, Elephant Trunk and Flying Bat Nebula
http://www.dutchdeepsky.com
Copyright: Maurice Toet Three pane mosaic acquired last weekend (August 30 - 31, 2013) at a dark site in Northern France with an Epsilon-180ED f/2.8 and Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR. First light image with this configuration. Just ~1 hour exposure time per pane (clouds and haze prevented acquiring more data). Please visit my website to view the technical details and to explore the mosaic at 6000 x 4000 pixels. Thanks for looking.

Langrenus Crater
20'' f/4 selfbuilt Dobsonian telescope
Copyright: Marco Guidi
[attachment=0]Langrenus.jpg[/attachment]

Stars and Shadows.
Copyright: César Cantú

My First Milky Way
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92681330@N06/
Copyright: Daniel Pasternak©

Cloud Vortex over Tibet
http://www.jovianarts.com/
Copyright: Phil Joffrain While flying from Lhasa, Tibet to Xi'an, China, this cloud formation was right outside my window over the northern Tibetan mountains.

IC 5146 and Barnard 168 in Cygnus
Full size image: http://www.pleiadian.net/deepsky/nebula ... 8_full.jpg
Copyright: George Gialoukas
IC 5146 and Barnard 168 in Cygnus
Scope: Officina Stellare Hyper APO 80 @ f4.8
FF/FR: Televue 0.8x Photo Reducer/Flattener
Camera: QHY9 KAF8300 Mono
Chip Temperature: -20 C
Filters: Astronomik L-R-G-B
Mount: Skywatcher NEQ6 PRO + EQMOD
Guiding: QHY5 + Baader UV/IR Cut + PHD
Capture: Nebulocity 3
Processing: PixInsight, Photoshop

Light Frames:

L: 24x600sec Bin1x1
RGB: 12x300sec Bin2x2
Total: 7h

Calibration Frames:

20x[Darks,Flats,Dark Flats,Bias] per channel

Milky Way
Copyrigth: César Cantú