Starship Asterisk*

Clouds and Crescents

Explanation: A crescent Venus shines along the western horizon at dusk in this clearing sky. The Earth's sister planet is smiling between the low clouds near the bottom of the frame during its January 2nd conjunction with the slender, young crescent Moon above. Of course the lovely pairing of Moon and Venus crescents could be enjoyed in the new year's skies around the the world. But the twin contrails in this scene belong to an aircraft above Appenzell, Switzerland. Soon to disappear from evening skies, Venus is heading toward its January 11th inferior conjunction and an appearance in predawn skies as planet Earth's morning star by late January. And the Moon will be young again, too.

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The end of January... the moon will be young again, too. Yeah... but i won't. :sigh:

Beyond, you are younger now than you'll ever be again.

This forum could be the local senior center but instead nobody really has any sense of age except for the occasional story about marching through the snow for six miles crop up. ...Or until I fail at a culture check from a decade before I was born. Oops!

geckzilla wrote:This forum could be the local senior center but instead nobody really has any sense of age except for the occasional story about marching through the snow for six miles crop up. ...Or until I fail at a culture check from a decade before I was born. Oops!

What do you mean? I don't understand what your saying..

I'm saying that, for the most part, nobody is aware of anyone else's age. It's a cool Internet thing. Gender, age, complexion, race, weight, the fact that you didn't shower today and are still in your underwear--everything is veiled. We are just thoughts expressed in words. My kind of place!

Do take the time to view some, or all, of Christoph Malin’s timelapse videos. They are amazing!

geckzilla wrote:I'm saying that, for the most part, nobody is aware of anyone else's age. It's a cool Internet thing. Gender, age, complexion, race, weight, the fact that you didn't shower today and are still in your underwear--everything is veiled. We are just thoughts expressed in words. My kind of place!

I know what you mean. Under the circumstances my jest was understandably not expressed clearly enough. Personally, I miss face-to-face interaction. I would so much prefer to get to know people outside of the written word. I enjoy the expressions and visible cues from various experiences. I'm a feeling-oriented kind of guy. My senses of a person are so much heightened by being with and responses are tempered more appropriately per the individual. I guess, for me, communication is deeper. I enjoy that the most.

Ah, In addition to the normal Asterisk, I envision a future skype forum where an array of faces are on my screen (more bandwidth!) sharing thoughts about the topic at hand. The only writing is notes I'm taking if I wish.

Gosh, I had no intention of going here ..

Nice APOD. No mention of the crescent shaped cloud. And, based on the "clearing sky" link, looks like we just missed out on a spectacular mountainous horizon.

Neat to get both in there....really nice...


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alter-ego wrote:I know what you mean. Under the circumstances my jest was understandably not expressed clearly enough.

You forgot the winky emoticon.

geckzilla wrote:...Or until I fail at a culture check from a decade before I was born. Oops!

You mean like Art's buggy whip references?

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
...Or until I fail at a culture check from a decade before I was born. Oops!

You mean like Art's buggy whip references?

• Amen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip#Buggy_whip_and_coachwhip wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<A buggy whip is a horsewhip with a long stiff shaft and a relatively short lash used for driving a horse harnessed to a buggy or other small open carriage. A coachwhip, usually provided with a long lash, is used in driving a coach with horses in front of other horses. Though similar whips are still manufactured for limited purposes, the buggy whip industry as a major economic entity ceased to exist with the introduction of the automobile, and is cited in economics and marketing as an example of an industry ceasing to exist because its market niche, and the need for its product, disappears. In discussing market regulation, it is often held that the economy would be disadvantaged as a whole if the automobile had been banned to protect the buggy-whip industry. Buggy whips are not entirely gone. A resurgence of interest in the international sport of combined driving and historical carriage driving, sports enjoyed by people of all ages, has allowed some buggy whip manufacturers to stay in business, serving this specialty niche market. Foremost among these is a company in Westfield, Massachusetts.>>

owlice wrote:Beyond, you are younger now than you'll ever be again.

But older than you've ever been before.

geckzilla wrote:... the fact that you didn't shower today and are still in your underwear ...

How did you know? My web cam is off, I checked.

bystander wrote:

owlice wrote:Beyond, you are younger now than you'll ever be again.

But older than you've ever been before.

"You are younger now than you'll ever be again - But older than you've ever been before."
Delicious teamwork!

Personally, I like Bob Dylan's take on it:
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

Here's a much higher resolution image of yesterday's crescent Venus, taken by Steven Bellavia through a five-inch telescope at high noon.

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_up ... d_id=92366

Notice the fuzziness of the edges. Venus has an atmosphere.

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Notice the fuzziness of the edges. Venus has an atmosphere.

Venus's atmosphere isn't that fuzzy... that's our atmosphere distorting the image, I'd wager.

geckzilla wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Notice the fuzziness of the edges. Venus has an atmosphere.

Venus's atmosphere isn't that fuzzy... that's our atmosphere distorting the image, I'd wager.

Correct. Every planet with a dense atmosphere appears to be as sharply defined as one with no atmosphere at all.

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Notice the fuzziness of the edges. Venus has an atmosphere.

Venus's atmosphere isn't that fuzzy... that's our atmosphere distorting the image, I'd wager.

Correct. Every planet with a dense atmosphere appears to be as sharply defined as one with no atmosphere at all.

Look at the edge of the dark side of Venus. There is slight refraction of sunlight through Venus' atmosphere.

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Look at the edge of the dark side of Venus. There is slight refraction of sunlight through Venus' atmosphere.

I don't see it in this image. But refracted or scattered, the edge of Venus is still optically unresolvable as anything other than solid from any small ground-based telescope (and likewise for the gas giants). The optical depth of the atmosphere is very high at visible wavelengths, resulting in a transition zone of no more than a few hundredths of an arcsecond even when Venus is near inferior conjunction.

The only planet I can think of which is easily visible with a fuzzy limb is Titan. Well, it's a moon, but it looks enough like a planet to me. Titan's atmosphere seems especially suitable for scattering light around its edges. Not too thick, not too thin.

Titan Nightside Mosaic by ugordan, on Flickr

Chris Peterson wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Look at the edge of the dark side of Venus. There is slight refraction of sunlight through Venus' atmosphere.

I don't see it in this image. But refracted or scattered, the edge of Venus is still optically unresolvable as anything other than solid from any small ground-based telescope (and likewise for the gas giants). The optical depth of the atmosphere is very high at visible wavelengths, resulting in a transition zone of no more than a few hundredths of an arcsecond even when Venus is near inferior conjunction.

I don't believe a ring could be visible in today's APOD. If it exists it would be exceedingly thin and faint. In the first image on the left, Venus had ~2.2° elongation and a ring was barely visible around the full perimeter. Venus' elongation in today's APOD ~14°. Given the rapid increase in ring brightness over small elongation angles, I would say no ring should be visible (even from the Dunn Solar Telescope).

http://venustransit.nso.edu/Best/