Starship Asterisk*

Night in the Andes Ice Forest

Explanation: This forest of snow and ice penitentes reflects moonlight shining across the Chajnantor plateau. The region lies in the Chilean Andes at an altitude of 5,000 meters, not far from one of planet Earth's major astronomical observatories, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Up to several meters high, the flattened, sharp-edged shapes, and orientation of the penitentes tend to minimize their shadows at local noon. In the dry, cold, thin atmosphere, sublimation driven by sunlight is important for their formation. A direct transition from a solid to a gaseous state, sublimation shapes other solar system terrains too, like icy surfaces of comets and the polar caps of Mars. Above the dreamlike landscape stretches the southern night sky. Their own forms rooted in myth, look for the constellations Pegasus, Andromeda, and Perseus near the panorama's left edge. Bright and colorful stars of Orion the Hunter are near center, with the Large Magellanic Cloud and the South Celestial Pole on the far right.

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They look big...but that could be an illusion of scale, and perspective....how large are the ice chunks in reality?

Really clear sky...

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Boomer, description here: http://dreamview.net/dv/new/photos.asp?ID=102885
"reaching heights from a few centimeters up to several meters"

The moon has no shins, therefore it can't be shinning! I think you mean "shining."

Boomer12k wrote:They look big...but that could be an illusion of scale, and perspective....how large are the ice chunks in reality?

Really clear sky...

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here's a pic with an average human being to compare with

The orientation of the sky looks off. Is it because of the pic being taken in the southern hemisphere?

Yeah, the sky is upside down. Orion's 'sword' is pointing up and the constellations are reversed.

revloren wrote:Yeah, the sky is upside down. Orion's 'sword' is pointing up and the constellations are reversed.

This is because the location is atop the Chilean Andes which is in the southern hemisphere. From the northern hemisphere, look at the night sky tonight while standing on your head and you will see the perspective from the southern hemisphere

At first it looked like some sort of KKK convention, waiting for their savior to show up.
But then I had my coffee and I can now appreciate the beauty of the ice and the night sky.

The engineers, technicians, and administrative staff at the ALMA observatory are on strike for better pay. Here are a report from Sky and Telescope, an interview with one of the union leaders, and the observatory management's statement. I can't imagine how hard it is on a human body to do physical and mental labor at 16,500 feet elevation. I hope the workers will be well compensated and the observatory can get back to full operations quickly.

P.S. This is a sublime photo!

Great sky and wonderful shot!

The ALMA strike has been ended:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-c ... trike-ends