Starship Asterisk*

Three Galaxies over New Zealand

Explanation: No, radio dishes cannot broadcast galaxies. Although they can detect them, the above image features a photogenic superposition during a dark night in New Zealand about two weeks ago. As pictured above, the central part of our Milky Way Galaxy is seen rising to the east on the image left and arching high overhead. Beneath the Galactic arc and just above the horizon are the two brightest satellite galaxies of our Milky Way, with the Small Magellanic Cloud to the left and the Large Magellanic Cloud on the right. The radio dish is the Warkworth Satellite Station located just north of Auckland.

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I'm assuming that someone with astronomy software will confirm that this spectacular and witty shot actually happened, sans cheating....

Hi, here comes the total noob. Are there really on earth places like this one where the naked eye can see the sky as clear and detailed as in this pic ?
I mean, such pics are usually made of a very long exposure time, aren't they ? What would this scene look like with a normal human pair of eyes ?

Hey, that's really, really nice, Mike (Mack?)!

I just saw another of your pictures, Antares and the Kiwi. Being a northener, I'm unfamiliar with the Kiwi in the sky. Can you point it out?

Ann

Aren't there 4 galaxies shown? Isn't that Andromeda at upper central left?

Jim Leff wrote:I'm assuming that someone with astronomy software will confirm that this spectacular and witty shot actually happened, sans cheating....

There's nothing technically wrong with the image. This is a real sky.

e-Van wrote:Hi, here comes the total noob. Are there really on earth places like this one where the naked eye can see the sky as clear and detailed as in this pic ?
I mean, such pics are usually made of a very long exposure time, aren't they ? What would this scene look like with a normal human pair of eyes ?

No, you can't see something quite like this with your eyes alone. Visually, this scene would have lower contrast and would be largely monochrome. Also, our eyes aren't wide enough angle to take in a scene like this. To see the entire arch of the Milky Way we would need to move our head and body, and it would appear more as a linear band across the sky.

Still, an image like this only requires a minute or so exposure, and is only a little better than what we could see visually.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Jim Leff wrote:I'm assuming that someone with astronomy software will confirm that this spectacular and witty shot actually happened, sans cheating....

There's nothing technically wrong with the image. This is a real sky.

And the view appears correct wrt the dishes as well. I estimate the camera location to be around 100m from the dish at the left.

skivee wrote:Aren't there 4 galaxies shown? Isn't that Andromeda at upper central left?

The upper central left would be in Scorpius or Ophiuchus. A very long way from Andromeda. From the location of the image, Andromeda never gets more than about 12°above the northern horizon (and here we're looking south). Also, at the time this image was made it was a daytime object.

There's no mention of the streak. As it appears uniform over its length my first guess is a satellite, but seems like the streak should be longer (maybe one that had a short visibility time?). It doesn't look like a meteor, but it's length may better fit that.

alter-ego wrote:There's no mention of the streak. As it appears uniform over its length my first guess is a satellite, but seems like the streak should be longer (maybe one that had a short visibility time?). It doesn't look like a meteor, but it's length may better fit that.

An image with such a large FOV is most likely a mosaic. The subs could be as short as 30 seconds... maybe even less. So it's quite possible that just one section of a satellite track could be caught and look like this.

Absolutely stoked to have this as APOD thanks everyone!

Ann wrote:Hey, that's really, really nice, Mike (Mack?)!

I just saw another of your pictures, Antares and the Kiwi. Being a northener, I'm unfamiliar with the Kiwi in the sky. Can you point it out?

Ann

Down here in NZ we see the Pipe Nebula as the Kiwi's beak? And then you will see the round body, and legs.
Each shot of this panorama was only 20 seconds long, using a 24mm lens on a Canon 6D camera - not modified either.

Today's APOD is one nice scenic picture!

Cool.....A GALACTIC RAINBOW!!!!!!

Just amazing. I really need to get good camera with wide angle and some long exposure capability....

:---[===] *

I really need to get someplace dark enough to see that again. In my yoot it was dark enough in the Adirondacks to see the entire arch, but along came light pollution.
Somebody better get a tech out there, the dish is leaking galaxies.

Very nice, looks like a painting to hang on the wall (if you are an astro-geek.)

I need to sit down and have an ice cold one and soak this in, for way more than a minute exposure time. And I used to live in a place where you could do that. Brazil.

It looks like the Milky Way is being SHOT out of the left Telescope....

:---[===] *

Boomer12k wrote:It looks like the Milky Way is being SHOT out of the left Telescope....

:---[===] *

Or being drawn down into it.

alter-ego wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

Jim Leff wrote:I'm assuming that someone with astronomy software will confirm that this spectacular and witty shot actually happened, sans cheating....

There's nothing technically wrong with the image. This is a real sky.

And the view appears correct wrt the dishes as well. I estimate the camera location to be around 100m from the dish at the left.

Hi alter-ego.

The image's Exchangeable image file format (Exif) information that I was able to find through the image properties is very extensive and also has a Google satellite view of the site marking where the image was taken. This link should (hopefully! ) bring up the Exif data:- http://regex.info/exif.cgi?imgurl=http% ... n_2000.jpg

DavidLeodis wrote:

alter-ego wrote: ...
And the view appears correct wrt the dishes as well. I estimate the camera location to be around 100m from the dish at the left.

Hi alter-ego.

The image's Exchangeable image file format (Exif) information that I was able to find through the image properties is very extensive and also has a Google satellite view of the site marking where the image was taken. This link should (hopefully! ) bring up the Exif data:- http://regex.info/exif.cgi?imgurl=http% ... n_2000.jpg

Thanks for that David. Over half the time I want Exif data it's been stripped. I've not seen that much information from image properties before. It's a real gold mine. Anyway, my estimated position was within 50m of the actual - not too bad for a quick assessment.

Chris Peterson wrote:

alter-ego wrote:There's no mention of the streak. As it appears uniform over its length my first guess is a satellite, but seems like the streak should be longer (maybe one that had a short visibility time?). It doesn't look like a meteor, but it's length may better fit that.

An image with such a large FOV is most likely a mosaic. The subs could be as short as 30 seconds... maybe even less. So it's quite possible that just one section of a satellite track could be caught and look like this.

Thanks, that makes total sense.
The next morning I realized that shorter exposures the are the norm with these kind of things. My V-8 moment so to speak.