Cool astronomy photos

[Anaxagoras]

[Witness]

Yes, these paths are sunlight - ONE YEAR (!) of exposure in a self-made pinhole camera. You can see cloudy days here, as well as winter days witn no leaves on the tree

https://old.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comm ... _exposure/

[Bruce]

[Witness]

Edge-On Galaxy NGC 5866

Why is this galaxy so thin? Many disk galaxies are just as thin as NGC 5866, pictured here, but are not seen edge-on from our vantage point. One galaxy that is situated edge-on is our own Milky Way Galaxy. Classified as a lenticular galaxy, NGC 5866 has numerous and complex dust lanes appearing dark and red, while many of the bright stars in the disk give it a more blue underlying hue. The blue disk of young stars can be seen extending past the dust in the extremely thin galactic plane, while the bulge in the disk center appears tinged more orange from the older and redder stars that likely exist there. Although similar in mass to our Milky Way Galaxy, light takes about 60,000 years to cross NGC 5866, about 30 percent less than light takes to cross our own Galaxy. In general, many disk galaxies are very thin because the gas that formed them collided with itself as it rotated about the gravitational center. Galaxy NGC 5866 lies about 44 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Dragon (Draco).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201115.html

[Witness]

Spoiler:

It's the sun.

Neutrinos, along with things like electrons and quarks, are fundamental pieces of matter according to physicists' Standard Model. But neutrinos are hard to detect. Readily produced in nuclear reactions and particle collisions, they can easily pass completely through planet Earth without once interacting with any other particle. Constructed in an unused mine in Japan, an ambitious large-scale experiment designed to detect and study neutrinos is known as Super-Kamiokande or "Super-K". Only(!) 500 days worth of data was needed to produce this "neutrino image" of the Sun, using Super-K to detect the neutrinos from nuclear fusion in the solar interior. Centered on the Sun's postion, the picture covers a significant fraction of the sky (90x90 degrees in R.A. and Dec.). Brighter colors represent a larger flux of neutrinos.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html

Day or night, you can always take a picture of the sun.

[Witness]

Light pollution:

[Fid]

Regarding light pollution. Some years ago I had the pleasant experience of a night at the Kaibab Inn near (in the USA version of near) the Grand Canyon.

Even without my 11x80 binocs at something like 7000 ft above msl I could see many of the Messier objects in Sagittarius and Scorpius. It was a humbling and wonderful experience.

[Witness]

[Witness]

I wanted to push myself a little here and see how detailed an image I could get using just one data run for the Great Conjunction. Here's the result.

This is a single run of color data from my C11 telescope using my .7x reducer to get the whole scene in frame at one time. The image isn't the highest quality out there, but unlike most of those better images, this isn't a composite image put together with other shots. Instead, this is an attempt to recreate the reality of what I saw tonight, flaws and all. Reality is not perfect.

I'm happy to answer any questions, and feel free to check out my Instagram for more of my work.

Gear:

• Celestron 11" EdgeHD telescope
• ZWO ASI290MC astro camera
• .7x reducer

https://old.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comm ... iter_were/

[Fid]

Well done to whoever did this!
I shall for now refrain from killing the first born Jewish boyos until there's oh... I dunno ...a supernova or something.

Seriously though the scale of that picture is almost unbelievable. It took years for spacecraft to go from one planet to the next.

I consider myself lucky to have seen such an event .

[Fid]

If I was ever to do a Christmas card, brothers this would be it.

[Witness]

[Fid]

My mountains don't ejaculate any thing nearly so cool. Well done.

[Witness]

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html (for large original)

[Witness]

Geminid meteor shower:




Technical details: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... or_shower/

[Witness]

Recent Impact near the South Pole of Mars:





And here's an older one on the Moon:

[shemp]

Recent Impact near the South Pole of Mars:

Looks like ed's butthole after a wild night at the bathhouse.

[ed]

How would you know?

[ed]

[Witness]

↑ Wrong thread.

---

[Witness]

Color me surprised:

Puerto Rico commits $8 million to rebuild Arecibo telescope



There’s a glimmer of hope for the collapsed Arecibo Observatory telescope as 2020 draws to a close. El Nuevo Dia reports that Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez has signed an executive order approving $8 million to help rebuild the radio telescope. Its reconstruction is important as a matter of “public policy” and reestablishing the Observatory as a “world-class educational center,” the Governor’s office said.

The National Science Foundation said it would tear down the Observatory as repairs would be too dangerous, although that doesn’t rule out building a new structure in its place.

We wouldn’t see this as more than a start. The $8 million in funding is unlikely to come anywhere close to reconstructing the telescope. We’ve asked the NSF for comment on the financial pledge, but it’s safe to presume a revival would require additional help.

Still, the funds represent an important step. They signal the territory’s commitment to Arecibo and its space studies despite the loss. They might also spur some in the US government to devote the extra funding needed to resurrect the Observatory. Don’t be surprised if 2021 is a brighter year for the facility, even if any rebuilding effort is likely to take much longer.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/puerto-r ... 54170.html (with noncommital NSF comment)

[Witness]

Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury Will Be Visible in the Night Sky During a Rare Triple Conjunction This Week

When is the triple conjunction?

The time to go looking for the triple conjunction is just after sunset on Saturday, Jan. 9, Sunday, Jan. 10 and Monday, Jan. 11, 2021. On Saturday and Sunday, the three planets will form a small triangle in the fading light, while on Monday you'll find Mercury next to Jupiter. However, it's not going to be easy to see because it will take place very low on the west-southwest horizon. The best time to look will be about 30 minutes after sunset when it will be dark enough to see the planets shine.

[Witness]

Nasa's Curiosity rover: 3,000 days on Mars

The US space agency (Nasa) is about to put its latest rover, Perseverance, on Mars. But we shouldn't forget that the existing robot, Curiosity, is still there and working well following its landing in equatorial Gale Crater back in 2012. Curiosity celebrates 3,000 Martian days, or Sols, on the surface of the Red Planet on Tuesday. The Mission Science Team has collected together a series of pictures that record some of the rover's major achievements.

We all know Mars as the Red Planet, we see that in the night sky. However, as our drill tailings gallery shows, once we drill just a small depth in to the interior, Mars can be very different. We have drilled successfully 29 times now and the sediments show a range of hues from ochre-red to blue-grey reflecting the minerals and fluids that passed through the ancient rocks. Drilling allows us to get through the top most, oxidized surface that has been most exposed to cosmic radiation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55562150 (more pics)

[Witness]

From the Juno image gallery.

[Witness]

Images reveal where lava broke through the wall of a Martian crater and began filling it up

[Bruce]

From the Juno image gallery.

She should probably get that looked at by a doctor.

[Witness]

Jets from Unusual Galaxy Centaurus A

The jets emanating from Centaurus A are over a million light years long. These jets of streaming plasma, expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image of Cen A. Exactly how the central black hole expels infalling matter remains unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets inflate large radio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years. If energized by a passing gas cloud, the radio bubbles can even light up again after billions of years. X-ray light is depicted in the featured composite image in blue, while microwave light is colored orange. The base of the jet in radio light shows details of the innermost light year of the central jet.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html