Absolutely marvelous photo taken by @Astro_Andre during launch up to ISS
Another aMAZing picture from Astronomy Picture Of the Day:
Aurora over Norway
The lunar eclipse this past saturday wasn’t visible here in the Twin Cities (cloudy). The west coast got the best view. Jeff Sullivan captured about 10 minutes of the eclipse as the moon set behind the Transamerica building in San Francisco in the great 8-second time lapse:
Phil Plait comments:
How amazing is that? It’s no coincidence he got the Moon to pass right behind the narrow pyramid of the Transamerica Building like that. According to the description on the YouTube page, he used some software to find the position of the Moon at various times, including the altitude (its distance above the horizon). Knowing the height of the building, he could then figure out how far away he had to be for the top of the building to be at that same altitude (it’s just a bit of trig). Then it was just a matter of finding a good spot using Google Earth — of course, accuracy is an issue. If the Moon was only 20 degrees off the horizon, then, given the 260 meter height of the building he had to be within about 10 meters of the right spot (about 715 meters from the building) or the Moon would miss. The lower the Moon, the less accurate he needed to be. Still. Nicely done.
via Lunar eclipse time lapse | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine.
@Astro_Soichi takes the best space photos…
Gorgeous pano shot of the Chajnantor array.
View from Chajnantor - APOD 23 Nov 2011. Click to embiggenate
Explanation: From an altitude of over 5,000 meters, the night sky view from Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes is breathtaking in more ways than one. The dark site’s rarefied atmosphere, at about 50 percent sea level pressure, is also extremely dry. That makes it ideal for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) designed to explore the universe at wavelengths over 1,000 times longer than visible light. Near the center of the the panoramic scene, ALMA’s 7 and 12 meter wide dish antennas are illuminated by a young Moon nestled in the arc of the Milky Way. ALMA’s antenna configurations are intended to achieve a resolution comparable to space telescopes by operating as an interferometer. At left, a meteor’s streak and the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large (bottom) and Small Magellanic Clouds grace the night.
Symphony of Science has been producing the most fantastic music videos evar by taking the words of scientists, autotuning them and adding a soundtrack, and displaying some of the most beautiful images to go along with.
This is the sort of thing that stirs my soul, I am moved by all of these videos.
There is a new one out, for Carl Sagan’s birthday. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bryan Cox and a few others are featured.
(or Watch on YouTube)
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS on Vimeo on Vimeo
This may singularly define what it is like to live in the future now. I look at the video, I know it’s from actual photographs stiched into a time-lapse sequence, and yet I still think “Wow, that’s an excellent CGI movie of traveling around the earth.” I’m so strange sometimes.
via Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS on Vimeo.
Do watch this in HD and full-screen. It is so worth it!!
Dr. Ian O’Neill has assembled An Awe-Inspiring Space Station Odyssey: Photos : Discovery News that just rocks so hard the beauty and inspiration of our presence in space.
Image of Aurora from ISS
2011 winners : Astronomy Photographer of the Year : Exhibitions : Visit : NMM.
The UK Royal Observatory holds an annual astronomy photography contest, and this year’s winners and runners-up are quite spectacular.
The categories are:
2011 Overall Winner for UK Royal Observatory Astronomy Picture of the Year by Damien Peach of Jupiter with Io and Ganymede
