Starship Asterisk*

Technical details at Astrobin.
Enjoy!

geckzilla wrote:

aldomottino wrote:Hi all,
The first picture was taken from my backyard at sunset. I was surprised to see such bright spot in the dark clouds since the sun was already below the horizon (18:30 local time aprox). So I moved immediately to the second floor roof and got the second image, and soon after that a zoom image. Minutes later the bright spot just disappeared.
I don’t think it was a sun pillar because the temp wasn’t too low, and sun pillars actually don’t look like that. Probably it was just a very isolated and focused sun ray. What I still don’t understand is how such kind of ray was formed and where it reached the clouds from (below, above, laterally?).
Anyway, it was something rare and really interesting to see, at least for me!
Thanks for looking!
Aldo

It looks like a sun pillar to me.

Thanks Geck. The temp in the surface was around 15ºC, that is well over the freezing temp, and from I have learned you need ice cristals in the atmosphere to see a sun pillar. Maybe moisture in the air produces a similar effect? Also, from I can see in the web it is not usual for sun pillars to end in such bright spot. Maybe it was indeed a sun pillar (an atypical one?).
Best regards,
Aldo

aldomottino wrote:Thanks Geck. The temp in the surface was around 15ºC, that is well over the freezing temp, and from I have learned you need ice cristals in the atmosphere to see a sun pillar. Maybe moisture in the air produces a similar effect? Also, from I can see in the web it is not usual for sun pillars to end in such bright spot. Maybe it was indeed a sun pillar (an atypical one?).

The temperature at ground level is rarely a reflection of the temperature higher in the atmosphere, though. If you take a look, there is a linear brightening below the false sun as well. This is typical of sun pillars. The top seems exceptionally bright, however. Maybe it isn't one, but I'd put my bet on ice crystals.

The Sun Light Pillar and the Moon
06/06/2016 Évora/Alentejo - Portugal

IMG_1612-4 by Cédric Pereira, no Flickr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/138866674 ... res/8ugGpP

The rage of Jupiter
Copyright:Emil Ivanov On June 3rd 2016 a strange weather came over Varna. While the sky around the zenith was clear, storm clouds hung low over the horizon. They produced a lot of beautiful lightnings. In this photo can be seen the planet Jupiter (upper right) as well as a powerful discharge, falling over the sea.
More info and hi-res images on website

Elephant's Trunk nebula from an urban polluted sky
This photo of vdB142 was taken during a tracking test session in our amateur observatory under the heavy polluted sky of Civitavecchia (Italy)
Our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/Sanderphil/

Copyright: Filippo Curti and Sandro Spadaro form Sanderphil Urban Observatory

Ancient Bristlecone Pines
This image features one of the oldest living trees in the world with the Milky Way, Saturn, & Mars.
Copyright: Brad Goldpaint
http://goldpaintphotography.com/ The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is home to the oldest trees in the world, Bristlecone Pines. Some of these living trees exceed 4000 years of age and exhibit spectacular growth forms of twisted and beautifully colored wood.

M5 and M4 mountains on Moon Limbo
Copyrights: Rodrigo Andolfato Milky Way
Copyrights: Jesús Mendoza Copernic, Kepler and Aristarchus craters region
Copyrights: Alain Paillou Sagittarius, Scorpius, Mars and Saturn
Copyrights: Samuel Trépanier Milky Way and the SDSS telescope
Copyrights: Patrick Gaulme Full Moon rising over Madrid
Copyrights: Javier Martinez Moran A planet 1,200 light-years away is a good prospect for a habitable world
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/plane ... able-world
Image credits: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=35991

Mars Dog
Copyrights: Dave Lane Mosaic NGC 7000 - Pellican
Copyrights: Domenico De Luca Milky Way arch over a "100 below sea level" sign
Copyrights: Rogelio Bernal Andreo Milky Way arch and green airglow
Copyrights: Rogelio Bernal Andreo Milky Way "post" on Devil's Golf Course
Copyrights: Rogelio Bernal Andreo Milky Way rising above ST.George Island Florida
Copyrights: David Woolsteen M83
Copyrights: Paul Haese ISS over tajinaste endemic plant in Mt Teide NAtional Park, Canary Islands
Copyrights: Roberto Porto M13
Copyrights: Howard Trottier Pilgrims of Mars
Copyrights: Petr Horálek Moon Light Delicate Arch and Jupiter
Copyrights: Clément Brustel ISS and the Moon
Copyrights: Yihan Goh Rosette Nebula
Copyrights: Robert Gendler, Roberto Colombari and Eric Recurt
More sizes: http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/Rosette-New.html Anticrepuscular rays
Copyrights: A Kannan Lagoon Nebula
Copyrights: Louie Atalasidis Moon
Copyrights: Camille Supernova ASASSN 16fq in M66
Copyrights: Terry Hancock

Art of Saturn
Copyrights: Vishal Sharma Laser shooting
Copyrights: Alessandro Cavallaro Jupiter (March 22nd, 2016.)
Copyrights: Damian Peach Aurora and stars' reflection at Hoopers Inlet
Copyrights: Ian Griffin The power of image processing
Copyrights: Fayçal Demri / CRAAG Seagull Nebula - IC 2177
Copyrights: Jeffrey O. Johnson The Emu – Milkyway Rising
Copyrights: Andrew Catsaitis Another look of Moon from Reunion Island
Copyrights: FOCK-HANG Pascal Planetary reflections over the Atlantic ocean
Copyrights: Sergi Luque Mars 30 May 2016
Copyrights: Alexei Pace Mars close approach and Milkyway
Copyrights: Amir Shahcheraghian NGC 4755, The Jewel Box
Credits and Copyrights: Data: Itelescopes.net; Processing: Albert Barr New Mexico storm at Mars' opposition
Copyrights: Kevin Black New radio map of Jupiter reveals what’s beneath colorful clouds
Copyrights: Imke de Pater, Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley), Robert J. Sault (Univ. Melbourne)
An article: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/06/02/new ... ul-clouds/ http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=36009

Path to the Stars

Image showing the walkig path to the hill where all the telescopes are located in Observatorio Astronómico Felix Aguilar (OAFA), Argentina, San Juan.

GALAXY IN THE MT.KONKA

Email:liangchenyi@vip.qq.com

Milky Way Panorama
Copyright: Erich Meyer
Contact: meyer@sternwarte.at







Link to the high resolution images:
Milky Way, color panorama (24125 x 4175 pixels, Attention: 110 MB)
Milky Way, inverted panorama (24125 x 4175 pixels, Attention: 94 MB)
All Sky image - Coalsack and drak clouds (3767 x 3759 pixels, 6.7 MB)

Description:
Our fantastic Milky Way Galaxy consists of innumerable stars, vast clouds of gas and dust, dark and bright in imaginable colors. The central bulge is very impressive. Also impressive is the large, but very faint Gum nebula and, in comparison, Barnards-loop around the well known constellation Orion.

Some other galaxies are behind our Milky Way visible in this panorama, for example M31, M33 and Centaurus A (NGC5128). Close the bulge the bright planets Mars, Saturn and the greenish comet LINEAR are visible.

The starry sky isn't dark or black. Black are only few regions (for example the Coal Sack nebula) and terrestrial clouds (see all sky image: between the really black terrestrial clouds the black Coal Sack nebula is visible; South: at the bottom). The inverted black-white image shows very clear the dark nebulae (here bright) strewn along the plane of the Milky Way (see the high contrast, black and white version of this panorama).

At full resolution, this mosaic image has 400 megapixels. It was stitched together from 36 deepfield-images taken with a modified DSLR camera. The individual images in this panorama were taken in Austria/Europe in 2015-2016 and in Namibia/Africa in 2016.

Area dense dust in australis crown
Photographed from Argentina.
rural area of San Antonio de Areco.
I hope you like the picture.
Copyright: Sebastian Colombo More image data and description:
http://astrofotografiadelcielosur.blogs ... /Nebulosas

stars and colors. polarized filter

foam universe green flash and sunspot 2546 between clouds in http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 51#p258451

The Milky Way arching above Cathedral Cove in New Zealand. To the upper right, the two blue patches of light are the Magellanic Clouds. The electric blue in the water is there because of bioluminescent plankton.
The panorama is stitched from 33 individual vertical frames shot on three rows.
I used a Carl Zeiss Lenses Otus 28/1.4 lens by F64 on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

June Conjuncion : Mars, Saturn and Antares


It was a magical night, I was alone at night in a village Navas de Estena, and this conjunction formed a new constellation.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/113060298@N03/7B6Bd3
Copyright: Christian García Pérez

the moon and forbidden city
Copyright: Rui Li
the Palace Museum in Beijing, China

the moon and forbidden city
Copyright: Rui Li
the Palace Museum in Beijing, China

the setting sun

Copyright: Rui Li

in Beijing, China

the flash and rainbow

Copyright: Rui Li

in Tsinghua Univ. Beijing, China

Milky Way and Southern Cross

Copyright: Rui Li

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand

M 08, Sharpless 25, NGC 6523 The Lagoon Nebula
copyright: Chuck Manges



by Chuck Manges, on Flickr

Area around Polaris.

copyright:avlinwu

email:liangchenyi@vip.qq.com

Colour, gas and dust in the core of the Lagoon Nebula

Mosaic of M8, the Lagoon Nebula, obtained using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) at the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma (Spain). Color image combining data in filters [O III] (blue) + H-alpha (green) + (red). Data taken in 2005, reprocessed in 2016.

Credit: Ángel R. López-Sánchez (AAO/MQU), Sergio Simón-Díaz (IAC), Jorge García-Rojas (IAC) & César Esteban (IAC).

Full resolution image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/angelrls/27545798056