Starship Asterisk*

Today's (Sunday, 2012 July 22) APOD image has appeared on APOD before and was indeed quite widely circulated in the 1990s. We are curious, however, how many newer viewers of APOD are unfamiliar with some of astronomy's classic older images. APOD reruns images on Sundays partly to bring back to light famous astronomical images for those who have never seen them. Therefore, by answering this poll question honestly, you are helping APOD's editors better know what fraction of APOD's current audience might have or have not seen a historically famous astronomy image. Note, though, that this image is particularly famous, and we would therefore expect perhaps a comparatively high fraction of our viewers to have seen this image previously.

The image is again posted here for clarity:
- RJN

"pillers of creation" i remember the name

Hmm, a bit early. It's not Sunday yet. Guess we know what tomorrow's APOD will be.

I vividly remember being extremely impressed at the detailed, three-dimensional appearance of the pillars. But I remember equally vividly being aghast at the color of the stars.

Ann

its okay with me to see pictures as awesome as this one more than once. No matter how many times i have seen it, i will always pause to admire it.

This is one that we have gone back to look at many times in the archives and happy to see it again.

Yes i recall this photo was used on a cover of a paperback book published by Jehovah's Witnesses.. It is a striking scene indeed.

There are some images like that one that I've seen before but are always worth revisiting. The Pillars of Creation has to be one of the classic images.

Yeah, it's onbviously one of the most iconic astronomy photos, but it's always worth it to bring them up again. They are classics for a reason.

Definitely seen it before. Definitely still enjoy seeing it.

Geez... APOD has been a daily stop for me for (15+?) years and I never grokked the fact that Sundays were "reruns." Or "classics."

I guess that's why they never let me touch any of the blinking buttons on the ship...

And remember folks, "Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Any faster would be dangerous!"

A poster picture of it is hanging on my wall, where I have admired it for years...

One would have to look long and hard to ascertain that the luminance, hue, white balance, etc.
were exactly the same...but as far as I can tell, aside from the present one being just slightly
smaller than the one from February 18, 2007, they do indeed seem to be the same image.

One thing has always puzzled me about this image--it seems to be presumed that they are
standing, like stalagmites from the floor of a cave. The word "pillars" implies this. But since
there is no "up" or "down" in space, couldn't they just as likely be hanging, like stalactites?

-Skygazer1956

I have seen this image many different places before, one of them being on a computer screen on the television show Star Trek: Voyager.

I know I've seen the picture before--but I have no idea where--and,since I'm new to the page, it wasn't here. It gave (and gives) me the feeling of roiling, boiling turbulence.

This picture is widely know for its Pareidolia content, and as I recall there was a 'zoom-in-movie' made of it that highlighted that content. Additionally Phil Plait posted a good comment about this: "http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/lenin.html"

This is one of the first images I encountered after I began scanning the internet, and I was so amazed and gratified that subject matter like this could be found on APOD that I've visited the APOD site daily ever since. Thanks for presenting and maintaining such interesting material and images.

SO many times.

But, never TOO many times.

This is where I want my taxes going: To discovery of wonder and of worlds - rather than to world conquest.

I recently spotted this iconic image being used as an interstellar backdrop in an old episode of Babylon 5.I doubt the B5 special effects people had any idea back in the 90's,as to just how famous this HST picture would become.

I've seen it before because APOD is the one website that I check everyday for years and years. Thanks so much for all your good work!
Clifford Wagner

Seen it? Paul Scowen used to have the office next door to mine at Rice - he was the one who did the raw IRAF processing of the Hubble images, and was therefore the first person *ever* to see it! Lucky git.

I believe it appeared on the cover of National Geographic

I've seen it because APOD is the first website I check every day. Good way to begin, with such sublime images! Ani Seltong

Excellent image to have as a classic view. Yes, I am dating myself as an early nerd but it was a good first time image as well as now (and the few times in between that I went back to look at it )
Keep the good images coming (New and Old) to the entire APOD team. I've gotten some of my best wallpaper from here .

I've seen it before, but I don't think I saw it here. Ditto to the comments above - always worth another look. I would be interested to see the differences between the 1995 and the 2007 pics (in different light frequencies etc., but a way to see how the shapes have changed?) IIRC the 2007 Infrared picture shows the interior stars.