I just saw the moon

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Oh my God, guys. This is gonna be incredible...
220509123109-webb-telescope-spitzer-comparison-0509-exlarge-169.jpg
 

CrazyDiamond

Crosseyed & Painless
Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the northern springtime constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait though. Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. This deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in fainter, gigantic, bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past.


This cosmic skyscape features glowing gas and dark dust clouds along side the young stars of NGC 3572. A beautiful emission nebula and star cluster it sails far southern skies within the nautical constellation Carina. Stars from NGC 3572 are toward top center in the telescopic frame that would measure about 100 light-years across at the cluster's estimated distance of 9,000 light-years. The visible interstellar gas and dust is part of the star cluster's natal molecular cloud. Dense streamers of material within the nebula, eroded by stellar winds and radiation, clearly trail away from the energetic young stars. They are likely sites of ongoing star formation with shapes reminiscent of the Tadpoles of IC 410 better known to northern skygazers. In the coming tens to hundreds of millions of years, gas and stars in the cluster will be dispersed though, by gravitational tides and by violent supernova explosions that end the short lives of the massive cluster stars.


Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula with a red color that originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw Nebula and cataloged as NGC 6334, stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the past few million years. Pictured here is a deep field image of the Cat's Paw Nebula in light emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.


Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have two? To begin, the bright band near NGC 1512's center is a nuclear ring, a ring that surrounds the galaxy center and glows brightly with recently formed stars. Most stars and accompanying gas and dust, however, orbit the galactic center in a ring much further out -- here seen near the image edge. This ring is called, counter-intuitively, the inner ring. If you look closely, you will see this the inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar that runs horizontally across the galaxy. These ring structures are thought to be caused by NGC 1512's own asymmetries in a drawn-out process called secular evolution. The gravity of these galaxy asymmetries, including the bar of stars, cause gas and dust to fall from the inner ring to the nuclear ring, enhancing this ring's rate of star formation. Some spiral galaxies also have a third ring -- an outer ring that circles the galaxy even further out.


This image of the reflection nebula Messier 78 was captured using the Wide Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This color picture was created from many monochrome exposures taken through blue, yellow/green and red filters, supplemented by exposures through a filter that isolates light from glowing hydrogen gas. The total exposure times were 9, 9, 17.5 and 15.5 minutes per filter, respectively.


This picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 3621 was taken using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. NGC 3621 is about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be well seen in moderate-sized telescopes. The data from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile used to make this image.


This image of the Orion Nebula was captured using the Wide Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This image is a composite of several exposures taken through a total of five different filters. Light that passed through a red filter, as well as light from a filter that shows the glowing hydrogen gas, is colored red. Light in the yellow–green part of the spectrum is colored green, blue light is colored blue and light that passed through an ultraviolet filter has been colored purple. The exposure times were about 52 minutes through each filter.
 

macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member
Last edited:

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Can someone explain to me why this is in the news, and especially on the front page, when this pic was taken and shown to the public in April of 2019? I get that the photo is important, and frankly magnificent, but it's 3 years old.


OK, now I see that this is a different black hole. This one is "ours" as in inside the Milky Way. The other one was in M87...
 
Last edited:

CrazyDiamond

Crosseyed & Painless
In the spirit of the eclipse the other day...the colors of the moon...
What color is the Moon? It depends on the night. Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth's atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy. A red or yellow colored moon usually indicates a moon seen near the horizon. There, some of the blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth's atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust. A blue-colored moon is more rare and can indicate a moon seen through an atmosphere carrying larger dust particles. What created the purple moon is unclear -- it may be a combination of several effects. The last image captures the total lunar eclipse of 2018 July -- where the moon, in Earth's shadow, appeared a faint red -- due to light refracted through air around the Earth. Today there is not only another full moon but a total lunar eclipse visible to observers in North and South America -- an occurrence that may lead to some unexpected lunar colorings.
 

CrazyDiamond

Crosseyed & Painless
The budget for that pos sucks tax money like Sagittarius A*!
Wonder if it will dock this time....eh hem, Dragon did it first try, lol.
 
CrazyDiamond,

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
This Boeing craft continues to have problems. They needed to try 3 different thrusters to get the proper orbital insertion last night.

Today they are now on the third try to get the capsule ready to dock. They have had to retract the docking ring and should be ready to try again in about 30 minutes...
 

CrazyDiamond

Crosseyed & Painless
This Boeing craft continues to have problems. They needed to try 3 different thrusters to get the proper orbital insertion last night.

Today they are now on the third try to get the capsule ready to dock. They have had to retract the docking ring and should be ready to try again in about 30 minutes...
And they said the next flight of it might be crewed? If I were one of them I'd say no thanks, y'all need to do more tests. I still don't know why it's needed now. It costs more per flight than Crew Dragon and when Starship comes online, it'll be even cheaper. I want my tax dollars spent wisely...did I really just type that? C'mon brain, you know that's not reality!
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Space is now a commercial enterprise. That is the model we seem to be following and it makes sense. It's good for there to be competition as that drives innovation, and there is certainly nothing wrong with some redundancy to be sure alternatives are available as different needs and circumstances arise.

It is also quite refreshing not to have to rely on Russia to get to space anymore. And soon we will have 2 platforms to do that and with Starship there will be 3, assuming Starship doesn't replace Dragon but complements it. Maybe even 4 if Bezos' tourist taxi turns out to be space worthy...
 

macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member

CrazyDiamond

Crosseyed & Painless
Recorded on May 15/16 this sequence of exposures follows the Full Moon during a total lunar eclipse as it arcs above treetops in the clearing skies of central Florida. A frame taken every 5 minutes by a digital camera shows the progression of the eclipse over three hours. The bright lunar disk grows dark and red as it glides through planet Earth's shadow. In fact, counting the central frames in the sequence measures the roughly 90 minute duration of the total phase of this eclipse. Around 270 BC, the Greek astronomer Aristarchus also measured the duration of total lunar eclipses, but probably without the benefit of digital watches and cameras. Still, using geometry he devised a simple and impressively accurate way to calculate the Moon's distance in terms of the radius of planet Earth, from the eclipse duration.


The plan was to capture a picturesque part of the sky that was hosting an unusual guest. The result included a bonus — an additional and unexpected guest. The beautiful background features part of the central band of our Milky Way galaxy on the far left, and the colorful clouds of Rho Ophiuchi in the image center. The unusual guest, a dimmed and reddened Moon on the right, was expected because the image was taken during last week’s total lunar eclipse. The timing had to be right because the Moon — both before and after eclipse — would be so bright it would overwhelm the background. The unexpected guest was the bright meteor across the image center. The fleeting meteor streak was captured on only one of the 10 consecutively-captured deep-field images from La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands, while the eclipsed Moon image was taken immediately afterwards with the same camera and from the same location. The next total lunar eclipse — also quite expected — will occur in early November.


The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. A tremendously bright nearby star, Herschel 36, lights the area. Vast walls of dust hide and redden other hot young stars. As energy from these stars pours into the cool dust and gas, large temperature differences in adjoining regions can be created generating shearing winds which may cause the funnels. This picture, spanning about 10 light years, combines images taken in six colors by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, lies about 5000 light years distant toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius).


This picture of the nearby galaxy NGC 6744 was taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla. The large spiral galaxy is similar to the Milky Way, making this image look like a picture postcard of our own galaxy sent from extragalactic space. The picture was created from exposures taken through four different filters that passed blue, yellow-green, red light, and the glow coming from hydrogen gas. These are shown in this picture as blue, green, orange and red, respectively.


This picture of the star formation region NGC 3582 was taken using the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The image reveals giant loops of gas ejected by dying stars that bear a striking resemblance to solar prominences.


A much wider shot of the previous image...This visible light wide-field image of the region around NGC 3582 was created from photographs taken through red and blue filters and forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The star formation region appears close to the center and is just one part of a vast complex of gas and dust in the southern Milky Way. The field of view is approximately 2.8 degrees across.


This infrared view of the star formation region Messier 8, often called the Lagoon Nebula, was captured by the VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. This image is a wider version of eso1001a and was created from images taken through J, H and Ks near-infrared filters, It was acquired as part of a huge survey of the central parts of the Milky Way. The field of view is about 72 by 39 arcminutes


A more close up view of the previous image...Another infrared view of the star formation region Messier 8, often called the Lagoon Nebula, was captured by the VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. This color picture was created from images taken through J, H and Ks near-infrared filters, and which were acquired as part of a huge survey of the central parts of the Milky Way. The field of view is about 34 by 15 arcminutes.
 
Top Bottom