astronomy picture of the day
Been way too long since the last astronomy nerd post
This one is just so elegantly composed. North America got a very pretty show this week from the Moon and Venus.
Happy equinox!
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice image by: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)
via Astronomy Picture of The Day
The picture is a composite of hourly images taken of the Sun above Bursa, Turkey on key days from solstice to equinox to solstice. The bottom Sun band was taken during the winter solstice in 2007 December, when the [...]
Bother, missed the planetary conjunction
Image Source: Planets over Perth (John Goldsmith), from Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Venus, Mercury then Mars are hanging above the Moon over the Swan River in Perth on September 1st. According to APOD, it’s still possible to see the three planets at dusk for a few more days, but they are getting [...]
APOD goes dancing
A couple of weeks ago I featured Matt Harding, who put up video on the internet of himself dancing, sometimes alone and sometimes with others (often a huge crowd) around the world.
Today, that’s the Astronomy Picture of the Day’s featured image. The annotation is superb.
Astronomy – it’s us down here as well. We [...]
APOD: Running Messier’s Marathon
When I retire I’m going to become an astronomy geek. Explanation for the photo below from APOD.
Image Credit: Amir Hossein Abolfath
Another lap of the circuit
At 0548 GMT (or UT if you prefer) on March 20, the Sun (from a geocentric perspective) passed the celestial equator heading north, making it the autumnal equinox for us Southrons and the vernal equinox for them Northrons.
APOD has published this lovely high atmosphere sunset shot (taken from the ISS) to celebrate.
Did anyone try to [...]
Astronomy Pictures of the Year for 2007
I’m sitting here, back from the “family” fireworks display over Sydney Harbour at 9pm (just slightly less frosty than the New Year firework display in Norway that we attended last year), about to pour myself a something with Frangelico, and clicking on a few of my favourite sites to see their retrospectives of the year. [...]
Ooh, shiny!
It’s been a while since I posted pretty astronomy pictures. This one caught my eye today.
Image Credit: APOD
Venus and the Moon appearing near to each other in the evening sky last week. I like the diffraction spikes on Venus. When I saw the pair last week they looked a bit more like this [...]
Lenticular clouds
I just heard on the radio that weather conditions in Sydney today are such that there’s a high probability of a lenticular cloud forming over the city late this afternoon, as the day cools. If it does, it will likely run from northwest to southeast, and should look fabulous from the east with the [...]
A cornucopia from Cassini
JPL has put up a photo-essay of some of the best shots of and around Saturn taken by the space-probe Cassini.
The moon Dione passes in front of Saturn (image from Astronomy Picture Of The Day)
H/T Club Troppo’s Nic Gruen, who likes this sort of thing.
What a show!
Regular readers, I’m talking up the Astronomy Picture of the Day site again.
This was taken in Perth on Australia Day (yes, it’s a panorama made from separate shots). The faint streak in the sky just left of centre is Comet McNaught.
Totally missing the comet so far
There was no news coverage about this comet in Norway, France or England/Wales, so we didn’t know that the night of our return was the night of the brightest showing of the brightest comet for decades (who else remembers the fizzer of Halley’s Comet last time around?). Had occasion to be on the roads [...]
Friday wet and furry
Well, this time on Sunday Australian time I will be in the air, asleep, on the way to Europe for Christmas and New Year. For New Year’s Eve we will be in Norway, and mr tog and I are crossing our fingers that the current solar storm will still be burbling away so that [...]
Ancients yet again smarter than thought
I love the way we keep finding that people in the ancient and prehistoric world were actually much less backward than previous generations of scholars thought.
image from Wikipedia
It was found at the bottom of the sea aboard an ancient Greek ship. Its seeming complexity has prompted decades of study, although many of its functions remained [...]
50 questions
I’ve been trying to avoid just responding to the news cycle and do some more thoughtful stuff, but that’s hard, so here’s a meme that’s been going around during our recent cold snap instead:
1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Why did I hardly have a [...]
Our wonderful neighborhood
click on picture for larger image at APOD
As regular readers know, I adore the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, and I have it as the homepage of my browser so I see every picture. This was yesterday’s, a shot taken from the Cassini spacecraft while in Saturn’s shadow, looking back towards the eclipsed [...]






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