Starship Asterisk*

From the Temple of the Sun to the Temple of the Moon

Explanation: What connects the Sun to the Moon? Many answers have been given throughout history, but in the case of today's featured image, it appears to be the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. The 16-image panorama was taken in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA where two sandstone monoliths -- the Temple of the Moon on the right and the Temple of the Sun on the left -- rise dramatically from the desert. Each natural monument stands about 100 meters tall and survives from the Jurassic period 160 million years ago. Even older are many of the stars and nebula that dot the celestial background, including the Andromeda Galaxy. Tomorrow the Earth will connect the Sun to the Moon by way of its shadow: a total lunar eclipse will be visible from many locations around the globe.

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The annotated Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon, are reversed from the description. So, which one is right, the annotation, or the description?

Sounds like a research project for you. When you find the answer, you can email the editors too.

That's a fine picture! I like the annotation.

Of course there is more that could be annotated - the Butterfly Cluster, M6, stands out like a sore thumb at lower right, and I think I can see the Double Cluster at lower left - but I certainly realize that you can't fill the picture with so many words and designations that you can't see the image behind!

Ann

I believe the annotations on the image are correct. As best I can tell, this is a panorama covering a bit more than 180° of the horizon, from North on the left, passing through East in centre and South on the right, with the camera being somewhere in between the two temples. If you type "38.4484, -111.1927" in to Google Maps, it will take you there, virtually.

geckzilla wrote:Sounds like a research project for you. When you find the answer, you can email the editors too.

Thanks for the advice, geck, but i only do searches, not researches, where a few to a lot have already gone. I stick to the un-trampled paths. And i wouldn't dream of e-mailing the editors and butting into something that you do so well, even if i knew what their e-mail addresses were.

Nitpicker wrote:I believe the annotations on the image are correct. As best I can tell, this is a panorama covering a bit more than 180° of the horizon, from North on the left, passing through East in centre and South on the right, with the camera being somewhere in between the two temples. If you type "38.4484, -111.1927" in to Google Maps, it will take you there, virtually.

Thanks everyone. Not my best week. I just fixedthe text.

- RJN

Does the ISS ever trace a path on the same plane as our galaxy? It would be an interesting panoramic photograph if it could be taken with the camera rotating a full circle during the orbit especially if the sun could be avoided or its light effect minimized. We’d get the rest of the arch in one photo. This has probably been done in other easier ways that I’m not aware of but the thought crossed my mind looking at today’s APOD. It's hard for me to picture the Milky Way from that vantage point.

"Sun and Moon" connected by a Milky Way Rainbow!!!! But there is another "connector" in the picture....EARTH....

Might be cloudy for the Eclipse here...but I will try to get a shot.

:---[===] *

RJN wrote:Thanks everyone. Not my best week. I just fixedthe text

No problem, RJN. In this seasonal change to cold weather, even the trees are falling apart.

The Entrada Sandstone that is found in the temples is from the Jurassic, but the temples themselves are very recent -- probably only several hundred thousand years old at best, and then even more recent for the current appearance. The sandstone in this vicinity is a softer variety of the Entrada. One clue to that is that there are no mounds of talus below the temples -- the sandstone crumbles fairly easily as it erodes, and erodes to a sandy dust leaving no broken mounds of eroded rock that has come off the temples.

...Not to mention the green glow of high-altitude chemoluminescence. Although the location is far enough north to catch Kp5,6 auroras, they would present themselves as a red glow on the horizon, much like the prior APOD from Payson, AZ.

Boomer12k wrote:Might be cloudy for the Eclipse here...but I will try to get a shot.

... Wishing you cooperative clear skies tonight!

Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:Does the ISS ever trace a path on the same plane as our galaxy? It would be an interesting panoramic photograph if it could be taken with the camera rotating a full circle during the orbit especially if the sun could be avoided or its light effect minimized. We’d get the rest of the arch in one photo. This has probably been done in other easier ways that I’m not aware of but the thought crossed my mind looking at today’s APOD. It's hard for me to picture the Milky Way from that vantage point.

Not sure that the ISS is terribly well suited to that sort of thing, but here is a 360 degree panorama of the galaxy produced by the ESO: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... a_(by).jpg

Thanks very much. For some reason it appears more as its natural state (as one might see it from orbit) to me. I'd be curious how this was composed over the many months. I'll look into it's source. Ron

Nitpicker wrote:I believe the annotations on the image are correct. As best I can tell, this is a panorama covering a bit more than 180° of the horizon, from North on the left, passing through East in centre and South on the right, with the camera being somewhere in between the two temples. If you type "38.4484, -111.1927" in to Google Maps, it will take you there, virtually.

And you would be correct thanks for doing that research!

Dave Lane