Astronomy Picture Of The Day

wait this one's better

http://i36.tinypic.com/r874lj.jpg

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2003/11/images/i/formats/full_jpg.jpghttp://www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/images/The_fighting_Temeraire.jpg

Left: The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838, 91 x 122 cm. Right: The mother-fucking Helix Nebula, a trillion mile long tunnel of glowing gas

More Helix nebula http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2003/11/image/

aren't all the hubble pictures artificially coloured anyway?

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/

"The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye."

Kinda. That image was taken with three different filters on two cameras, which allows them to make a pretty good colour version.

The most reliable images colourwise are the old school ones taken with photographic plates, e.g. http://www.aao.gov.au/images/general/emission.html

In space, no one can see you colour.

Does anyone here do DIY astronomy imaging? I've seen some stuff recently and you can take some amazing pictures with digital camera technology (multiple exposures, adding the light in layers, using filters, etc.).

Holy mother...
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Thats the greatest!

fucking amazing.

is this the first time they've had a video up on apod?

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/enceladus_up_close.html

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/enc_10_24/enc09_approach.gif

This sequence of 12 frames was taken over a span of about 45 minutes on March 12, 2008. In that brief time, Cassini covered almost 40,000 kilometers in its approach to a flyby encounter with Enceladus. The overexposure and smearing of the images gives a hint of the raw speed involved - 14.4 km/sec (or 32,211 mph). Shortly after this sequence, at its closest, Casini approached within 52 km (32.3 miles) of the surface of Enceladus. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

p.s. if you like astronomy pictures and hate cancer then you should all buy one of these:

http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/skyphoto/images/double_frame.png

http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/skyphoto/

This kid is five years old and has had leukemia for four of those years.

those are U.K. only for the time being, btw, but they're hopefully working on non-U.K. sales.

That'll make a neat Christmas present for my father. Thanks!

(It's his birthday tomorrow and one of his presents seems to be lost in the post, so if I had my chequebook I might even have tried wandering across town to see if they could produce one on the spot, but no chequebook, so I guess I'm spared being that annoying person...)

(Oh hey, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell signature editions and everything!)

: )

(I just realised my post made it sound like those are pictures of cancer. Just to be clear, they are original photographic plates from the Palomar observatory.)

"Add an extra £5 and get your gift wrapped by real Astrophysicists from Oxford."

is this a good use of their time?

They're only grad students. It's not like they have work to oh shit.

http://cache.boston.com/universal/bigpicture/v838.gif

cosmic zit poppin'

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/hubble_space_telescope_advent.html

KA BOOOOOOM

Whoa. Way cool.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/12/02/no-dyson-spheres-found-yet/

(I hope no one objects to me hijacking this thread for liveblogging things I read over morning coffee. Happy to take this stuff elsewere.)

Awesome - and a mystery too! Awesome²!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090112.html

lol at the (middle) finger nebula:
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2000/06/big.html

My APOD:

http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0600.html
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d5/sunx.jpg

today's would make a good science lesson, if not several:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090115.html

CH4 on Mars.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4243321/Mars-methane-discovery-hints-at-presence-of-life.html

I, for one, welcome our new farting Martian overlords.

woah: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090128.html

BLACK HOLE JETS OMFG

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/images/2009/01/28/blackholejetshires.jpg

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/spectacular-new.html

lol cosmic sonic booms

Very nice lenticular cloud, today.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090203.html

Any Texans see the flaming mountain of space debris? I wish I had!

that video spooked me out, because it featured a ton of people running and shouting. before i realised they were also filming a marathon run at the time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7891912.stm

Bad astronomy seems to suspect that it IS satellite bumpercar fallout.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/02/15/fireball-over-texas/

in this international year of astronomy, take your own APOD's with your retina and your mind grapes for $15 + shipping.

https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/

i played with one of these at a conference a while back. for the price, they are totally awesome.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/shuttsm/shutt06.jpg

oh hi we heard you like the hubble advanced camera for surveys so we're off to fix it. be done in 1 week.

(note: all the good APOD pictures are taken with the ACS, but it broke in summer 2007)

http://i.gizmodo.com/05173385/shuttle%20riding-bat-dies-the-most-glorious-death-imaginable

Not astronomy, but wow anyway:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7952344.stm

Oh. it's everywhere.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1163121/Pictured-The-spectacular-eruption-underwater-volcano-South-Pacific.html

I can't help but think of the movie 'Lifeforce' (or in book form or UK movie title 'the space vampires) with that bat clinging to the shuttle. That little dude was just getting a lift home.

Oh. it's everywhere.

yep just linked to it on the guardian site too

yaow

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/cassinis_continued_mission.html

Cheers, caek, that's a superb link. The selection of images and accompanying descriptions are truly mesmeric.

Wow. Just wow.

"The outer edge of the B ring is anchored and sculpted by a powerful gravitational resonance with the moon, Mimas"

Wow. My mind is boggling away here like mad.

Wow, wallpaper heaven!