Astronomy photography

[Radojica]

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...by_Herakel.jpg

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/pic...pictureid=1469

Pic made by me. Obviously not photos, but my point is that many of the pics who you think are photos may very well be made using a 2D/3D software.

When it comes to astronomy pictures 3D software would be useless since 3D view is becoming to disperse after some 50 to 100 meters and you are not able to see what is closer or farther from you. That's why we have Red shift for measurement of distances between us and distant stars, galaxies, nebulas...

As far as I know, astronomers are using software's for colouring according to spectrometers, to show objects as they really appear...

[Radojica]

The Photopic Sky Survey is a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures. Large in size and scope, it portrays a world far beyond the one beneath our feet and reveals our familiar Milky Way with unfamiliar clarity. When we look upon this image, we are in fact peering back in time, as much of the light—having traveled such vast distances—predates civilization itself.

Seen at a depth thousands of times more faint than the dimmest visible star, tens of millions of other suns appear, still perhaps only a hundredth of one percent thought to exist in our galaxy alone. Our Milky Way galaxy is the dominant feature, its dusty arms sweeping through the frame, punctuated by red clouds of glowing hydrogen. To the lower right are our nearest neighbors, each small galaxies themselves with their own hundreds of millions of stars.

http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html
http://media.skysurvey.org/openzoom.html

*use your mouse to move the picture and zoom in and out*

[Radojica]

We need to reneview this thread!!! Zanki, what are you waiting for, for Christ sake ? H*E*L*P**M*E**!



Total solar eclipse from 2008

[Zankapfel]

With the winner of the 2011 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition to be announced next month, here's a small selection of the best entries.

Judged by a panel of experts including Patrick Moore, the winning images will be on display at the Royal Observatory, London, from 9 September until February 2012.

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Star trails are photographed by pointing a camera skywards and waiting. As the Earth rotates, stars produce circular trails.

The star at the centre of this image is Polaris, better known as the North Star. This image was constructed from 681 individual photographs shot over a 12-hour period.

Image by Lorenzo Como

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Messier 51a, otherwise known as the Whirlpool galaxy, is one of amateur astronomers' most popular objects, because it can be seen easily with binoculars. The galaxy is around 23 million light years away, located within the constellation Canes Venatici. In this image, the Whirlpool is shown alongside Messier 51b, a dwarf galaxy with which it interacts.

On 31 May, a supernova was seen in M 51a. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggested that it was the explosion of a yellow supergiant star 18 to 24 times the mass of our sun.

Image by Karelteuwen

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This image shows the Milky Way rising over Delicate Arch, Utah. It is a spiral galaxy, and our solar system sits in a spiral arm known as the Orion-Cygnus arm.

The Milky Way contains something between 200 and 400 billion stars, and is estimated to have at least 50 billion planets. It takes our sun 225 to 250 million years to complete a full orbit around the centre of the galaxy.

Its name comes from Greek mythology. According to legend, the galaxy is milk spilt by Zeus's wife Hera while suckling the infant Heracles.

Image by Brad Goldpaint

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The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are a natural light display caused by highly charged electrons in solar wind interacting with the Earth's atmosphere.

Solar winds stream away from the sun at speeds of around 450 kilometres per second. Upon reaching the Earth, some 40 hours later, they follow the lines of magnetic force generated by the Earth's core and flow through the magnetosphere, a teardrop-shaped area of highly charged electrical and magnetic fields. The electrons in the solar wind then interact with oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth's upper atmosphere, producing spectacular light displays.

In the southern hemisphere, the analogous phenomenon is known as aurora australis.

Image by Christian Salomonsen

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Perseid meteors have been observed for over 2000 years; they are shed by the comet Swift-Tuttle. Because its orbit takes it close to Earth, astronomer Gerrit Verschuur described Swift-Tuttle as "the single most dangerous object known to humanity".

The showers occur from mid-July onwards each year and are best viewed in the northern hemisphere. Last year, at its peak, the shower produced over 100 meteors an hour.

In the foreground is St Michael's tower, atop Glastonbury Tor, UK, a site famously associated with Arthurian legend.

Image by Mike-DT6

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NGC 281 is an H II region in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It includes the open cluster IC 1590 and several Bok globules (dark doo-dads at center of the Blue area). NGC 281 is also known as thePacman Nebula for its resemblance to the video game character from early 80's.

NGC281 spans over 80 light years at its estimated distance of 9500 light years.

Image by J-P Metsavainio

Source: New Scientist

[ElWolverine]

I like the pics. Universe is misteyous and I hope that someday we reach tecnology and resources to travel around the universe and explore every place in our galaxy, till take pictures ourselves of the universe.

[Zankapfel]

^ I miss my stargazing buddy Rade!

A fast-moving star, Alpha Camelopardalis, creates a stunning bow shock in this new image from WISE.



Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

[Phil75231]

Hubble image of Fomalhaut b, the first planet detected via direct imaging of the planet's visible light. Orbits the star Fomalhaut, about 25 light years from earth, in the constellation Pisces Austrinus (visible in the S. Hemisphere and up to about latitude 40 in the N. Hem.)

[lei.talk]

New app makes stargazing easy, informative

By MARC RITTER North County Times | Posted: Monday, October 3, 2011 11:30 am

I honestly didn't see this day coming, a day when I could say that a person could hold a phone up to the skies to find out what was up there. Today's column is about an app I use for my iPhone and iPad called "Star Walk." I don't often write about applications, but I feel that this is something readers of this column can use ---- and it is dirt cheap.

"Star Walk", an app by Vito Technology, allows any layperson to navigate the skies above, day or night, without having to spend a couple hundred bucks to do so.

"Star Walk" opens up with what is called Sky Live, a beautifully illustrated summary of information about the day's rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, and the location of the naked-eye planets.

But the beauty doesn't end there by any means. The next window takes you right to the sky. When I first got the app, I just used the touch screen to move around the heavens and see the different constellations and stars and planets, a virtual star chart of the entire sky.

And when you hold your device up, the GPS and gyroscopes kick in to make your local skies alive. Suddenly, wherever you point the device, there is on your screen in full color, the very sky in front of you, illustrated and labeled. (And you can see even the skies below the horizon since Star Walk is not limited to the visible sky.)

That will keep you busy for long enough, but there's more. Tapping on a constellation or star or other point of interest will allow you to get information on that object. Using the search button will help you find all kinds of objects by directing you to them with an on-screen arrow. Want to know where Cygnus the Swan is? Enter it and "Star Walk" takes you there.

Other handy extras include a night vision mode to make it easier for your eyes to go between screen and dark sky. You can follow various satellites. A sliding clock can take your sky forward and backward in time. There is an adjustable visual magnitude bar for better representing how dark ---- or how light-polluted ---- your sky might be.

The latest version has a gift for us nerdy backyard astronomers ---- a full spectrum scroll. Here you can "see" how the heavens look in all kinds of wavelengths from gamma ray all the way down to radio waves.

The bad news for some readers is that Star Walk is only available for the iPhone and iPad. (The iPad version is stunning.) The good news is that it's just $3 for the iPhone, $5 for the iPad. You cannot beat that price.

It is available at the iTunes Store. Go get it and start exploring!

[Autobahn]

The Diner at the Center of the Galaxy
Illustration Credit: ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann

Explanation: The monster at the center of our Galaxy is about to get fed. Recent observations by the Very Large Telescopes indicate that a cloud of gas will venture too close to the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center. The gas cloud is being disrupted, stretched out, heated up, and some of it is expected to fall into the black hole over the next two years. In this artist's illustration, what remains of the blob after a close pass to the black hole is shown in red and yellow, arching out from the gravitational death trap to its right. The cloud's orbit is shown in red, while the orbits of central stars are shown in blue. The infalling nebula is estimated to contain several times the mass of our Earth, while the central black hole, thought to correspond to the radio source Sagittarius A*, contains about four million times the mass of our Sun. Once it falls in, nothing is expected to be heard from the doomed gas ever again.

Retrieved From:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111230.html

Comet Lovejoy and the ISS
Image Credit: Carlos Caccia, (Intendente Alvear, Argentina) / Right - Dan Burbank (ISS Expedition 30, NASA)

Explanation: On December 24, Comet Lovejoy rose in dawn's twilight, arcing above the eastern horizon, its tails swept back by the solar wind and sunlight. Seen on the left is the comet's early morning appearance alongside the southern Milky Way from the town of Intendente Alvear, La Pampa province, Argentina. The short star trails include bright southern sky stars Alpha and Beta Centauri near the center of the frame, but the long bright streak that crosses the comet tails is a little closer to home. Waiting for the proper moment to start his exposure, the photographer has also caught the International Space Station still glinting in the sunlight as it orbits (top to bottom) above the local horizon. The right panel is the near horizon view of Comet Lovejoy from the space station itself, captured only two days earlier. In fact, Dan Burbank, Expedition 30 commander, recorded Comet Lovejoy rising just before the Sun in a spectacular video (linked here). Even considering the other vistas available from low Earth orbit, Burbank describes the comet as "the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space."

Retieved From:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111231.html

[Radojica]