Starship Asterisk*

Stellar Evolution in Real Time (painting)
Copyrights: Stephen Mack
An article: http://www.gemini.edu/node/12195 M101
Copyrights: Albert Barr Mars, Vesta, Ceres
Copyrights: Tunc Tezel Markanian Chain
Copyrights: Robert Fields M31 - Andromeda Galaxy
Copyrights: Robert Fields and Terry Hancock NGC 2841, Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major
Data sources: Hubble Space Telescope, Subaru Telescope (NAOJ) and Digitized Sky Survey
Processing: Robert Gendler
More sizes: http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC2 ... u-DSS.html Milky Way with a 1m radio telescope
Copyrights: Sandro Tacchella Hubble Finds That Monster 'El Gordo' Galaxy Cluster Is Bigger Than Thought
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Jee (University of California, Davis)
An article: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... 4/22/full/

Abell 21 SHORVB - Skymeca 20" full size : http://www.felopaul.com/galerie/photo43z.jpg

Abell 21 HOO - Skymeca 20" full size : http://www.felopaul.com/galerie/photo43zo.jpg

http://www.felopaul.com
Copyright: Didier CHAPLAIN & Laurent BOURGON

Horsehead Teamwork

This is our horsehead, taken by 3 astrophotographers with 3 different telescopes and 3 different cameras and 40 hours exposure time:
13 hours RGB by Gottfried Meissner with a Canon 1000Da @ 10” Newtonian.
9 hours HA by Juergen Kemmerer with a FLI 16803 @ 12” Newtonian.
15 hours Luminance by Reinhold Wittich with a Moravian G2-8300 @ 12” Newtonian
3 hours HB by Reinhold Wittich with a Moravian G2-8300 @ 12” Newtonian
Processing by Reinhold Wittich

Crescent Moon 18
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vegastarc ... 611559135/
Copyright : VegaStarCarpentier
This is a View Artisitique of Crescent Moon Last Night at 18% of Lunar Illumination April03, 2014.. The Moon was treated with IRIS software and returned to 90 ° Best Regards,
VegaStar.

ISS met Jupiter
Time: 2014/4/4 11:32 UTC
Location: Tainan, Taiwan
Magnitude (ISS): -3.1
Optics: GSO RC8
Camera: Canon EOS 60D
Exposure: 1/1000s at ISO6400

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

Mirror - A few inches of water cover the salt flat of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. When it is calm it creates an excellent mirror for the sky. This was after 3AM and the Milky Way core was directly over head, so it is out of the frame.
http://www.facebook.com/dakotalapse
http://www.dakotalapse.com

Image of team obtained from the composition of several photographs. All material has been processed by me.
Credits (in alphabetical order):
Claudio Bottari, Giuseppe Donatiello, Rolando Ligustri, Giuseppe Nicosia, Andrea Pistocchini, Christian Riou, Stefano Schirinzi.
Full res image: http://www.astrobin.com/full/73329/D/

Venus, in the weeks before or after inferior conjunction, clearly shows the night side. Generally, we focus our attention in recording the blanket of clouds on the planet (UV and NIR), but the night side allows us to glimpse details of the surface of Venus, thanks to the phenomenon of the absorption bands of carbon dioxide (CO2), in near-infrared of the spectrum. The blanket of clouds of the planet can be drilled only in a "window" around 1000nm. Using CCD or webcam with high sensitivity in the infrared and filters of proven quality you can record this particular emissions.

Oversampled image captured with SharpCap - Frame Stack 10x
Properly exposed image captured at 25fps

Full res image: http://www.astrobin.com/full/75411/B/

NHGC2264 WIDEFIELD
Updated Version
http://www.skyandphoto.com
Copyright: Rafael Rodríguez Morales

Cometary Globules CG 30, CG 31 and CG 38 in Puppis
http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com
Copyright: Rolf Wahl Olsen Link to high resolution image (4.2MB)

Here are some rarely imaged but very pretty and faint cometary globules in Puppis, taken with my new homemade 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian.

Pictured against the sprawling star fields and dark clouds of the Southern constellation Puppis are some ghostly glowing structures known as cometary globules. They owe their existence to complex interactions between gas and dust and the intense ultraviolet radiation from young O type stars in their neighbourhood. And possibly also to supernova explosions in the distant past.
Passing shock waves and radiation pressure have interacted with density fluctuations in the interstellar medium, and caused the formation of condensations called Bok globules. The radiation is also ionizing Hydrogen gas in the area, visible as the faint pink glow, while slowly eroding away the condensed globules and blowing their contents out into long tails, similar to that of a comet.
Radio observations from ESO's La Silla observatory in Chile have shown that the gas in the globules has a temperature of some 5,000 to 14,000 Kelvin.
Within the dense globules new stars are being born and at least one of these is visible as a bright orange glow in the dense upper right globule CG 30. This is a Herbig-Haro object (HH120); the result of plasma jets ejected from young protostars which collide with the surrounding gas and dust and cause the glowing emission.
These delicate light-year wide structures are relatively short lived and will ultimately succumb to the emerging radiation pressure from the very stars born within them. Within a few hundred thousand years a splendid cluster of young bright stars will emerge and take their place.
This particular region in the southern constellation of Puppis is very rich. Surrounding the globules are faint dark clouds and countless stars in all colours. The beautiful little blue reflection nebula on the left is Bran 106 / vdB-Ha 5.

Image details:
Date: 31st January and 2nd, 3rd, 25th, 27th February and 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th March 2014
Exposure: LRGB: 675:105:95:85 mins, total 16 hours @ -25C
Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

M97, the internal layer/shell structure of the owl nebula
http://www.astro-billeder.dk
Copyright: Niels V. Christensen

IC443 Jellyfish Supernova Remnant
Full Resolution Image:
http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/thumbs/b ... elchak.jpg

http://www.astrobin.com/users/sydney/

sundogs and planes http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 01#p223401

PSLV-C24 ejecting used strap on boosters
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s Polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) ejecting spent strap on boosters. This pic was taken from about 10 km from the launch pad. This ejection happened at an elevation of 56,000 m. Linear distance must be more than double of that. This rocket was delivering a regional navigation satellite IRNSS-1B to orbit.
http://wondroussky.blogspot.in/
Copyright: Arun Venkataswamy

At Mt Paiko, a plastic water pipe and its previous position on the snow, makes a path to the Andromeda galaxy that can be found in the center of the image. Our own Milky Way galaxy is attracted by the massive gravity of the three times bigger Andromeda galaxy and one day in the future we will collide!

The image was made at Mt Paiko at Kilkis Northern Greece.
Kind regards
Constantine Emmanouilidi

Watching for a Black Hole to Gobble up a gas Cloud
Image credits: ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann
An article: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/ ... cloud.html Mars near to the opposition
Copyrights: Fabio Carvalho Sentinel-1A
Copyrights ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014 M88 and M91 galaxy field
Copyrights: Lorand Fenyes Jewel Box in wide field
Copyrights: Roberto Colombari
Full size: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2879/134 ... 0b25_o.jpg M91
Copyrights: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
Full size: http://skycenter.arizona.edu/sites/skyc ... s/M91s.jpg SunDog
Copyrights: Leonardo Orazi

A year ago, I was standing in the staircase on the top floor of my appartment buiding talking to a neighbor.
Suddenly he noticed a perfect image of the Sun slowly moving across the wall behind me. It only lasted for a couple of minutes.
The Sun was shining through a keyhole which acted as a lens, just as we were inside a gigantic pinhole camera.
Unfortunately I had not taken note neither of the exact date nor the time so it has been a long wait for days in a row this spring with my camera ready on a tripod.
I talked to the owner of the appartment beforehand and she kindly agreed to keep the lightpath unobstructed from blinds, curtains, keys etc.

When the Sun finally appeared on the 4th of April, there was not one but two perfect tiny Suns, slowly moving across the opposite wall.

Our building is perfectly oriented to the cardinal points so theoretically it could have occured on the spring equinox, but as the windows are slightly offset, we have to wait for 2 more weeks before getting this unique alignment.

But it still is like having a miniature Stonehenge at home

/*Peter R

The Horsehead Area (Wide Field)
Copyrights: Federico Pelliccia
Full size; http://www.astrobin.com/full/88349/0/ Galaxy M83
Copyrights: Richard Hammar Southern Cross from Gran Canaria Island
Copyrights: Frank A. Rodriguez Astro sketch drawing of the pillars of creation Messier 16
Copyrights: Nathalie Breuvart Big Activity of the sun in H-alpha April 6, 2014
Copyrights: Olivier Hardy
Full size: http://soleilhalpha.free.fr/soleil/2014 ... TU_70c.jpg

Amateur launch of rocket with solid fuel.
Owned Dr. Luis Arellano. Saltillo, Mexico.
Photography César Cantú.

http://youtu.be/2kNx4lLdxNU

Orion, The Hunter Constellation (unrealistic Ha+RGB composition)
http://astrofotky.cz/~Konihlav/
Copyright: Pavel Pech

One year of sunsets from South Pole
Copyrights: Robert Schwarz M82 - Fading SN 2014J
Copyrights: Jeff Johnson The skies over Waimea Canyon in Kauai, Hawaii
Copyrights: Dan Chan Milky Way over Thailand
Copyrights: Matipon Tangmatitham

My latest images made with a C11 Hyperstar in the Netherlands,

IC410 the tadpoles M13 M44 the beehive cluster M97 M108 IC10 Leo triplet Markarian's chain Copyrights: Michael van Doorn
Full res images can be found here: http://www.dutchastrocolors.com

Milky Way

https://www.flickr.com/photos/m_acubens/13684266125/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/m_acubens/13680019123/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/m_acubens/13680274684/

Sergio Montúfar

Each and every time I visit this site (mostly to lurk), the sheer talent that exists is always a humbling experience.

Thanks go out to all for continually providing us something to strive for.

Crescent Nebula/NGC 6888 in Cygnus - Ha, OIII
hythamsafieh.smugmug.com, http://www.manuelj.com
Copyright: Hytham Abu-Safieh (processing), Manuel Jimenez (data acquisition) Large size: http://hythamsafieh.smugmug.com/Astrono ... rmt-X3.jpg

Eta Carinae aka La Reina Mariposa - HaLRGB
hythamsafieh.smugmug.com, http://www.astrobin.com/users/rob77/
Copyright: Hytham Abu-Safieh (processing), Roberto Colombari (data acquisition) Large size: http://hythamsafieh.smugmug.com/Astrono ... _ps-X3.jpg