The Astronomy Tower

[WagWag]

The Sun

I fuckin' love this image.

This image was taken (just last week) in a single color of the red visible spectrum called H-Alpha. It was then inverted and falsely colored. The texture that makes up the majority of the surface is called spicules while the light wisps seen on both the edges of the sun and along it's surface are prominences. Those darker tangles are sunspots, one of the largest groups of sunspots yet recorded is right of center.

I just love seeing that the bright spot in the sky, that you're never supposed to stare at, in such kick-ass detail. A full resolution of the image can be found HERE.

[Daximus]

Can you imagine how awesome it would be if we could all freely observe such an object?

The size of our known universe baffles me.

[WagWag]

Can you imagine how awesome it would be if we could all freely observe such an object?

The size of our known universe baffles me.

I agree with both of these sentiments, 100%.

[WagWag]

Moons of Saturn

There are four (out of 60+) moons of Saturn in this image taken by the Cassini space craft. The largest one in the image is Titan. The next moon, in transit of the largest moon is Dione. Pandora is the moon outside of the rings and is only 80 kilometers across and in that gap in the rings to the left, you'll see Pan, only 35 kilometers across (but still big enough to keep the gap it sits in free of particles). Full resolution image HERE.

[Kulindahr]

I love this last one, it's like standing on the edge of oblivion.

A shuttle astronaut who'd stood on the end of that arm gave a lecture at a university science class I attended. Someone asked him how it felt to stand up there, and he said that once he got set and looked around, he was over the Pacific Ocean, and it was like standing on the world's highest diving board, and the urge to just bounce and dive was overwhelming.

They've got no business up there. This shit needs to be defunded and shut down.

Absolutely. And Columbus had no business sailing across that ocean to a new world. And the British had absolutely no business settling another continent, or the Spanish or Portuguese, for that matter.

Saw this image, just had to share it:

Explanation: The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in the giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun.
. . . .
Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

Talk about perspective...

It brings to mind a Bible verse that I've associated with space exploration for a long time: "What is man, that You care about him?" We live on such a tiny little place!

ISS took a global effort to develop and build. It takes a lot of resources and global brain power. The cost ran up as much as 160 billion dollars. It's expensive to man and maintain and with global economy in decline, countries struggling with debts, NASA fading away as an agency, there is no interest to keep maintaining it beyond the projected operational years.

If I were as rich as the Koch brothers, I'd make an offer on it.

[WagWag]

A shuttle astronaut who'd stood on the end of that arm gave a lecture at a university science class I attended. Someone asked him how it felt to stand up there, and he said that once he got set and looked around, he was over the Pacific Ocean, and it was like standing on the world's highest diving board, and the urge to just bounce and dive was overwhelming.

I can only imagine. What class was it for? Do you remember the astronaut's name? Thanks so much for sharing that story Kulindahr, I'm always wanting to hear some personal insight from the men and women who have actually been up there. What a cool experience!

[WagWag]

A bit of a follow-up of the sun post at the top of this page:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOHWE9nHzzw[/ame]

This video shows how the sun's surface changes over just an hour's time. This was taken in 2006 by the Vacuum Tower Telescope in the Canary Islands of Spain.

[Kulindahr]

I can only imagine. What class was it for? Do you remember the astronaut's name? Thanks so much for sharing that story Kulindahr, I'm always wanting to hear some personal insight from the men and women who have actually been up there. What a cool experience!

The class was called "Rocks and Stars", a kind of physical science overview course aimed at fraternity and sorority people who needed a science course. I took it because it had a reputation for being fun. Less than half the sessions were taught by the professor; we got visiting professors, two different guys from JPL, a British Petroleum geologist, a geologist from the Mt. Saint Helens monitoring group, an earthquake guy from U Cal, a minerals geologist from somewhere, that astronaut, and more.

I can't remember his name, but he packed the place -- the auditorium was definitely far over legal occupancy.

[Kulindahr]

A bit of a follow-up of the sun post at the top of this page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOHWE9nHzzw

This video shows how the sun's surface changes over just an hour's time. This was taken in 2006 by the Vacuum Tower Telescope in the Canary Islands of Spain.

Kool.

I remember studying the physics of solar prominences. Wish we'd had movies like this to make it easier to visualize!

We even got assigned a sci-fi story -- it was about energy beings that lived in the sun's surface, where they were subject to the violence driven by the magnetic fields. It ended with one making a suicidal leap to escape a rising flare that would have torn him to oblivion. It gave a different perspective.

[Daximus]

I LOVE THIS THREAD!! And nice title change btw. Perfect. I'll see if I can come up with something original to offer up and post. <3 WaGWaG!!

[Kulindahr]

I can't wait till we can go up and see some of this for ourselves...

[ChickenGuy]

The Sun

The link to the magnified image is as much detail as I've EVER seen in a solar photograph. It's quite amazing.

You can almost feel the swirls of the convection currents and the sheer intense heat and the energy and power of the thing. It's like a gigantic furnace.

The sunspots are interesting too - I know they're like 1000°C cooler or something, but I wonder if they are 'level' with the surface around them or 'elevated' or 'sunken' if you know what I mean.

Keep up the good work WaGWaG!

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

there telescope lookin at humans ans their ways lot conetrys

stronga then any telescope man made

it a good thang

thankyou

[WagWag]

Horseshoe Einstein Ring

That distinctive blue horseshoe shaped structure around that galaxy isn't any kind of spectacular space-dust ring but is actually a gravitational lens mirage. The gravity from the red galaxy is actually distorting and bending the light from another (blue) galaxy that lies behind it. Because the Hubble Space Telescope is aligned so precisely to this phenomenon, we are able to see an effect that Einstein predicted more than 70 years ago. A full resolution image can be found HERE.

Fuckin' sweet.

[Kulindahr]

That is astounding!

I LOVE it.

[WagWag]

Earth's Shadow

During this month's lunar eclipse, the moon entered Earth's shadow (or umbra) and remained in it's shadow for a total of 51 minutes. As we all can figure, Earth's shadow is cast off into space in the shape of a cone, it's cross section is a circle. This is a composite image, from Beijing, using several images of the moon in different phases of eclipse to construct that circular shadow.

It's amazing to me that from such a simple alignment of photos that we are able to see the size of Earth's shadow from the moon's distance in space, as well as where in the shadow the moon passes. Full resolution can be seen HERE

[WagWag]

That is astounding!

I LOVE it.

It really is astounding, I'm glad you enjoy it as much as I do!

[Kulindahr]

I missed the eclipse -- we got fogged in and then clouds came over. I would have had to drive an hour and a half to see it, which would have meant almost no sleep that night.

But those pics bring back memories of an eclipse party by a pool, where two of us decided we'd tread water all through totality -- and we ditched our shorts for the event.
Treading water naked is a very unique thing. Treading water naked with a drink in one hand while watching the moon turn its angry red shade. Its mood was ominous, ours was frivolous.

[Keeland]

Good thing NASA uses the word "human" so often. One wouldn't want to suggest it's being occupied only by microbes and space aliens, would one?

[WagWag]

I missed the eclipse -- we got fogged in and then clouds came over. I would have had to drive an hour and a half to see it, which would have meant almost no sleep that night.

But those pics bring back memories of an eclipse party by a pool, where two of us decided we'd tread water all through totality -- and we ditched our shorts for the event.
Treading water naked is a very unique thing. Treading water naked with a drink in one hand while watching the moon turn its angry red shade. Its mood was ominous, ours was frivolous.

Ha ha, great story. There's nothing like a lunar eclipse and there's nothing like skinny dipping. I haven't had the pleasure of combining those two things, it sounds like quite an experience.

[SoloHero]

These pictures are giving me chills, man. lol Absolutely amazing.

[Kulindahr]

Ha ha, great story. There's nothing like a lunar eclipse and there's nothing like skinny dipping. I haven't had the pleasure of combining those two things, it sounds like quite an experience.

The real 'experience' was keeping the drink out of the water and actually drinking it while treading water. I don't remember how long totality was, but it seemed like hours.

[Yves Grey]

I'm bumping this again, to share this sweet video of the sun's surface:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jciUYQHa6-0

The Monday before last (12/6/10), this long filament--which is the darker strand you can see at the beginning of the video--exploded. The filament had formed a week before the eruption. A coronal mass ejection occurred as a result of this explosion, throwing plasma into the solar system.

You see the ejection of plasma at about the 0:08 mark. If that ejected body of plasma hit our atmosphere, auroras would have occurred, which wasn't the case with this event. I just thought I'd share it with those interested, it's so fascinating to me.

All of this was observed by SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), which is an Earth orbiting spacecraft that was launched only this past February. The images were collected in the spectrum of ultraviolet.

Fun fact: The red elements seen in the video are the "cool" solar plasma ranging in temperature from 60,000-80,000K while the yellow/orange elements on the surface are the nearly 1 million K "hot" plasma. Maybe not such a fun fact, depending on who you are, but interesting nonetheless.

OMG! I thought it farted...

I can't believe I haven't seen this thread before. Thank you, WagWag!

[Yves Grey]

Random thought, but some of your beautiful photographs reminded me of a visual concept I recently saw applied to the song Jupiter:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXrkralsAQ&list=FLVSzAlcjI6gJAXn02CRtliw& index=6&feature=plpp_video[/ame]



The song has an interesting history, has been transliterated many times. A pretty good translation can be found:

http://www.animelyrics.com/jpop/hirahara/jupiter.htm



I wasn't sure whether you'd like it; but having seen your blog I thought I'd give it a whirl. Not quite as grand as the jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring majesty captured by some of the still-frames here!

[WagWag]

That is a pretty bitchin' visual Yves Grey (love the candles), thanks for sharing that.

[WagWag]

Free Fallin'

Here we have Bruce McCandless floating 100 meters from the space shuttle Challenger's cargo bay. He and fellow astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience this distance in an untethered space-walk, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). Check the awesome full resolution photo HERE.

Hope you all are enjoying the new year so far!

[WagWag]

I'm inspired by the conversation going on in this thread so I thought I'd jump back to this one with a few cool images.

Witch Head Nebula

This reflection nebula is illuminated primarily by the star Rigel in the constellation Orion. It is the fine dust of the nebula that reflects the light from Rigel, which isn't blue itself--a similar phenomena that makes Earth's sky blue is what gives this dust it's blue appearance. The nebula lies 1000 light-years away. Here's the image at a higher resolution.

[Kulindahr]

Here's something I couldn't link the pictures from -- it's worth the click... astronomy up close and personal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16678405

[WagWag]

Cygnus-X

Cygnus-X is the largest star-forming region in the Milky Way galaxy. This is a deep infrared image of that region. What's visible are bubbles of gas that are inflated by the winds created from stars soon after they've been formed. It's theorized that these bubbles can collide with others and create enough density to gravitationally collapse into more stars. It should be noted that the hottest regions in this image are in blue. You can see a full resolution image of Cygnus-X here. It's beautiful.

[WagWag]

Here's something I couldn't link the pictures from -- it's worth the click... astronomy up close and personal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16678405

Beautiful Kulindahr. I think the auroras are something special. Sure, we humans have the night sky to look at (in varying degrees of clarity) almost every evening, but we seem to have gotten bored with it. Those dancing lights can snap people out of that apathy from time to time--which is good for us if you ask me.

[Legionair]

Just imagine what's out there that we haven't seen yet. Personally I can't wait until we fire up the space race again.

[teadrinker]

Oh but these pictures are magnificent. Here's a couple more for you.

First, the deservedly famous (but which not everyone may have seen): "Pale Blue Dot":



Of this image Carl Sagan said:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. [...] On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

(However, the "beams" are not sunbeams, but artifacts of the imaging process which required a long exposure.)

And secondly, this desert-like place, which could be in the Australian outback:



is in fact the surface of Mars. Think about it - you are looking right now, at the surface of another planet. If that doesn't fill you with a shiver of wonder, then nothing will.

-T.

[chrisrobin]

I still remember Adlai Stevenson's designation - "space ship earth". The pictures of Earth
here renew that idea!

[Kulindahr]

Cygnus-X

Cygnus-X is the largest star-forming region in the Milky Way galaxy. This is a deep infrared image of that region. What's visible are bubbles of gas that are inflated by the winds created from stars soon after they've been formed. It's theorized that these bubbles can collide with others and create enough density to gravitationally collapse into more stars. It should be noted that the hottest regions in this image are in blue. You can see a full resolution image of Cygnus-X here. It's beautiful.

I saw that on the wall of a church once during Christmas. With the reds and greens and whites, they called it "God's Christmas display".

I liked it better than the usual Nativity display.

[mark1111]

WagWag, thank you for keeping this going. The images are amazing.

[teadrinker]

Right, last picture for me before I head off to work (it's morning in Australia). This is a picture of the "Sloan Great Wall", so far the largest structure found in the observable universe, and is 1.37 billion light years across. It's a "filament" of galaxies; that is, every tiny dot in this picture represents a galaxy (like our own Milky Way):



The extraordinarily huge size and scale of this structure can be described in numbers, but it's almost impossible to understand something of this magnitude because we have no frames of reference for it. Anyway, it's staggering.

-T.

[WagWag]

teadrinker-

I love that graphic. It's fascinating, thank you for sharing it.

[WagWag]

I know we have seen similar videos in the past, but here's more of a good thing (it's some of the same footage, combined with some new--set to some awesomely melodramatic music).

A little past halfway through is my favorite part, with the auroras on display.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0fTKAqZ5g&list=UUIcA_1j7WQ8VXyygM6qI-fw&index=1&feature=plcp[/ame]

[Kulindahr]

Right, last picture for me before I head off to work (it's morning in Australia). This is a picture of the "Sloan Great Wall", so far the largest structure found in the observable universe, and is 1.37 billion light years across. It's a "filament" of galaxies; that is, every tiny dot in this picture represents a galaxy (like our own Milky Way):



The extraordinarily huge size and scale of this structure can be described in numbers, but it's almost impossible to understand something of this magnitude because we have no frames of reference for it. Anyway, it's staggering.

-T.

Can you imagine what the night sky would look like in one of those galaxies where they're all clustered? Pinwheels and spiral everywhere!

[WagWag]

A pretty cool animation on the evolution of the surface of the moon.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKmSQqp8wY&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

[Saybrooke]

I'm not afraid of anything....

Except outer space... I'm not sure why, but thinking about it gives me the heebie jeebies!

[star-warrior]

If you folks have been paying notice to the night sky, then you'll probably have see two very bright objects very close by. Venus and Jupiter. The closer Venus outshines the more distant Jupiter, in the West in the evening sky. I've had some glorious views of this conjunction.

(Photo from here)



More here

[Kulindahr]

I'm not afraid of anything....

Except outer space... I'm not sure why, but thinking about it gives me the heebie jeebies!

I would love to be there -- get into lunar orbit, step out in a space suit, and tell them to loop around the moon once and come back for me.

Though I'd like it more if we could build an elevator to orbit, or skyhook, or orbital tower -- whatever you want to call it. Getting to orbit would be like riding a train, and the view...!!!

[Kulindahr]

If you folks have been paying notice to the night sky, then you'll probably have see two very bright objects very close by. Venus and Jupiter. The closer Venus outshines the more distant Jupiter, in the West in the evening sky. I've had some glorious views of this conjunction.

(Photo from here)



More here

I've been watching. One night, if I stood in just the right place, they looked like two bright ornaments on a neighbor's tree. Another night, they "sat" as bright spots on a hilltop. But most awesome was a night when they hung together between two glowing cloud layers.

I SO wish I had a camera!

[star-warrior]

If folks haven't already discovered the Stellarium, then get this wonderful free piece of software and enjoy the night sky at any time.

Moreover, you can set the view from your own longitude and latitude, as well as change the date to see past and future sky appearances. It's open source, free software, available Linux, Macs and Windows.

[Pianist]

I've been watching. One night, if I stood in just the right place, they looked like two bright ornaments on a neighbor's tree. Another night, they "sat" as bright spots on a hilltop. But most awesome was a night when they hung together between two glowing cloud layers.

I SO wish I had a camera!

I wish we had less cloud cover. :P

[Kulindahr]

If folks haven't already discovered the Stellarium, then get this wonderful free piece of software and enjoy the night sky at any time.

Moreover, you can set the view from your own longitude and latitude, as well as change the date to see past and future sky appearances. It's open source, free software, available Linux, Macs and Windows.

I like it because on nights when there's cloud cover (one in five nights being clear is a treat at this time of year) I can see what the sky would look like if the clouds went away.

It makes me appreciate an old native American prayer my sister turned into a small poster with calligraphy:


Oh you
you there up in the sky
don't you ever get tired
of having cloud
between you and us?

[palbert]

Beautiful. Thank all of you.

[WagWag]

In this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft, we see Io in front of Jupiter. Io is considered to be the most volcanic body in the Solar System. It is roughly the same size as Earth's moon (at 3,600 kilometers in diameter) and roughly the same distance from Jupiter as the moon is to Earth (350,000 kilometers). The Cassini spacecraft itself was around 10 million kilometers from Jupiter when the image was taken. Click here for the image in a little higher resolution.

I thought this was a lovely image.

[Kulindahr]

^ OMG, a gargantuan monster is rising out of Jupiter to eat Io!