Starship Asterisk*

Behold the Universe

Explanation: What if you climbed up on a rock and discovered the Universe? You can. Although others have noted much of it before, you can locate for yourself stars, planets, and even the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. All you need is a dark clear sky -- the rock is optional. If you have a camera, you can further image faint nebulas, galaxies, and long filaments of interstellar dust. If you can process digital images, you can bring out faint features, highlight specific colors, and merge foreground and background images. In fact, an industrious astrophotographer has done all of these to create the presented picture. All of the component images were taken early last month on the same night within a few meters of each other. The picturesque setting was Sand Beach in Stonington, Maine, USA with the camera pointed south over Penobscot Bay.

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Yes. Behold the Universe. It's somewhere between the emptiest and the fullest places we know. As humans it's right between our ears.

More like "Behold the Galaxy".... but, OK....

To me it looks like Gort from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".....

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Boomer12k wrote:
To me it looks like Gort from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".....

• "Klaatu barada nikto"

What is the very bright 'object' that seems as if it is being held in the left hand? It would seem likely that it is the Moon but the explanation states the "component images were taken early last month" thus early July 2016. Thanks to Judy Schmidt's helpful annotation I now know which is Saturn and the constellations so using that information I've looked at star maps from early to mid July 2016 but the Moon only appears near Saturn and Mars around the 14/15 of July, thus in the middle of the month not early. I'm even wondering if the object is a lamp used to give an effect! I'm .