APOD: Shoreline of the Universe (2014 Sep 20)

[APOD Robot]

Shoreline of the Universe

Explanation: Against dark rifts of interstellar dust, the ebb and flow of starlight along the Milky Way looks like waves breaking on a cosmic shore in this night skyscape. Taken with a digital camera from the dunes of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, planet Earth, the monochrome image is reminiscent of the time when sensitive black and white film was a popular choice for dimmly lit night- and astro-photography. Looking south, the bright stars of Sagittarius and Scorpius are near the center of the frame. Wandering Mars, Saturn, and Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) form the compact triangle of bright celestial beacons farther right of the galaxy's central bulge. Of course, the evocative black and white beach scene could also be from that vintage 1950s scifi movie you never saw, "It Came From Beyond the Dunes."

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[Boomer12k]

Reminds me very much of the shot of the Dunes, in....Invasion From Mars...1953....right down to the Stick fence and grass....
A boy witnesses a saucer landing, out in the dunes....

Great looking shot...

:---[===] *

[alter-ego]

Reminds me very much of the shot of the Dunes, in....Invasion From Mars...1953....right down to the Stick fence and grass....
A boy witnesses a saucer landing, out in the dunes....

Great looking shot...

:---[===] *

Wasn't that the one where, at the end of the movie, he wakes up only to realize it was all a dream and then he witnesses the same landing for real?
I liked that one.

[Boomer12k]

Reminds me very much of the shot of the Dunes, in....Invasion From Mars...1953....right down to the Stick fence and grass....
A boy witnesses a saucer landing, out in the dunes....

Great looking shot...

:---[===] *

Wasn't that the one where, at the end of the movie, he wakes up only to realize it was all a dream and then he witnesses the same landing for real?
I liked that one.

Yes, it IS that one...great movie...

:---[===] *

[richard schumacher]

It is lovely, but, "dimly", please, not "dimmly".

[VPD]

And two meteor trails too!

[Flubberly Delicious]

Is that glow off to the far right coming from the Hatteras light house?

[DavidLeodis]

It's an excellent image. Nice also to see a black & white one.

I have a query. In the explanation it states "Wandering Mars, Saturn, and Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) form the compact triangle of bright celestial beacons farther right of the galaxy's central bulge". I take it therefore that this is triangle of stars to the right of a triangle of stars nearer the bulge. If so, then as in information from the Zubenelgenubi link states that is the second brightest star of the constellation Libra then is the bright star above the triangle the brightest star of Libra? I hope that makes sense!

[Nitpicker]

It's an excellent image. Nice also to see a black & white one.

I have a query. In the explanation it states "Wandering Mars, Saturn, and Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) form the compact triangle of bright celestial beacons farther right of the galaxy's central bulge". I take it therefore that this is triangle of stars to the right of a triangle of stars nearer the bulge. If so, then as in information from the Zubenelgenubi link states that is the second brightest star of the constellation Libra then is the bright star above the triangle the brightest star of Libra? I hope that makes sense!

Yes, the bright star above the triangle is Beta Librae (or Zubeneschamali, derived from Arabic meaning "the northern claw"). Along with Alpha Librae (or Zubenelgenubi, "the southern claw", which is actually a binary, the brighter of which is just dimmer than Zubeneschamali), they were originally considered part of the Scorpius asterism, before the modern constellation boundaries were defined.

[DavidLeodis]

Thanks Nitpicker for your very helpful reply.

I'm glad I checked before posting as I had initially put your name as Nipticker.

[Ann]

As a Color Commentator, I obviously prefer (RGB) color pictures over black and white ones. But this one has a stark beauty which reminds me strongly of the feeling I got when, as a novice, I read Burnham's Celestial Handbook. It was full of old, black and white photos which seemed to originate, in some cases, from the dawn of photographic astronomy.

There is indeed a "shoreline" feeling to this image - a sense of shorelines between past and present, poetry and science, observation and art.

I'm strongly reminded of page 1862 of Burnham's Celestial Handbook. That page features a lovely black and white image of the Pleiades, framed by the slender branches of, perhaps, a willow tree. The caption is a quote of a part of a poem by Tennyson,

.....The Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies
Tangled in a silver braid....

I was incredibly moved by the stark beauty of that page, and how it seemed to echo through the times.

The APOD of September 20 is beautiful, too.

Ann