Thursday, May 31, 2018

NGC 6744 CLOSE UP Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the LEGUS team




Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo, its galactic disk tilted towards our line of sight. This Hubble close-up of the nearby island universe spans about 24,000 light-years across NGC 6744's central region in a detailed portrait that combines visible light and ultraviolet image data. The giant galaxy's yellowish core is dominated by the visible light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core are pinkish star forming regions and young star clusters scattered along the inner spiral arms. The young star clusters are bright at ultraviolet wavelengths, shown in blue and magenta hues.

MOON AND CATHEDRAL ROCK Taken by David Blanchard on May 28, 2018 @ Sedona, AZ






The day before the full moon presents opportunities for great images as the sun is still high enough in the sky to illuminate foregrounds such as Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona.

In the first image, the 99% moon is nestled in the left gap. The second shot is a crop of the same image. The third image shows the moon in the middle gap with a couple admiring the moonrise.

FULL MOON NAMES

https://articles.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2018/05/full_flower_moon.amp



January -- Wolf

February -- Snow
March -- Worm
April -- Pink
May -- Flower
June -- Strawberry
July -- Buck
August -- Sturgeon
September -- Harvest
October -- Hunter's
November -- Beaver
December -- Cold





Tuesday, May 29, 2018

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THAT MELTED NASA CAMERA?



Images of a brushfire approaching, then destroying, a remote camera set up to photograph the NASA/German GRACE-FO launch on May 22, 2018.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls




NASA Photographer Bill Ingalls's remote camera set up before the NASA/German GRACE-FO launch from Vandenburg Air Force Base on M





NASA's "melted camera" has become a social media thing. As with many photos that spread like wildfire on the Internet, only part of the camera's story has been exposed so far. Here is the rest of it.

NASA photographer Bill Ingalls has been shooting for the agency for 30 years. His creativity and efforts to get unique images are well known within the agency and to those who follow it. He knows where to set up his cameras, so what explains the view from the camera, as seen in the GIF above?

"I had six remotes, two outside the launch pad safety perimeter and four inside," said Ingalls. "Unfortunately, the launch started a grass fire that toasted one of the cameras outside the perimeter."

The location and vegetation can be seen in the set-up picture at right. Once the fire reached the camera, it was quickly engulfed. The body started to melt. When Ingalls returned to the site, firefighters were waiting to greet him. Recognizing the camera was destroyed, Ingalls forced open the body to see if its memory card could be salvaged. It could, which is how we can see the fire approaching the camera.

Ironically, the four cameras set up inside the perimeter were undamaged, as was the other remote. The damaged camera was one of the furthest from the pad, a quarter of a mile away.

The "toasty" camera (below right), as Ingalls calls it, is likely headed for display somewhere at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Ingalls himself will soon travel to Kazakhstan to photograph the June 3 landing of the International Space Station's Expedition 55 crew. He expects that will be a completely normal assignment.





SETTING MOON IN A FOREST OF HIMEBOTARU Taken by Yasushi Aoshima on May 26, 2018 @ Gifu, JAPAN



Himebotaru (Luciola parvula) is a small firefly in Japan. It appears midnight in some special forest only for a week in early summer.
Data: AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mmF2.8G ED (at 14mmF2.8), CanonEOS6D, 12800 ISO, 508x30sec stacked (14:10-18:51 UT)

MANTENIMIENTO PLANETARIO CIUDAD DE ROSARIO - POR: GUSTAVO ARIAS /// FOTOS: ESMERALDA SOSA


.. estudiando parpados estrellas fijas ..


.. y reemplazando lampara estrellas fugaces y limpieza del equipo ..














.. nos acompaño ..





.. mejor imposible Gus ! .. 😃




SEVEN DUSTY SISTERS Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing & Copyright : Francesco Antonucci




Is this really the famous Pleaides star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleaides is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here three infrared colors have been mapped into visual colors (R=24, G=12, B=4.6 microns). The base images were taken by NASA's orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. Cataloged as M45 and nicknamed the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades star cluster is by chance situated in a passing dust cloud. The light and winds from the massive Pleiades stars preferentially repels smaller dust particles, causing the dust to become stratified into filaments, as seen. The featured image spans about 20 light years at the distance of the Pleiades, which lies about 450 light years distant toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus).

Sunday, May 27, 2018

THE CLAVIUS/TYCHO REGION OF THE TERMINATOR OF THE 68% WAXING MOON Taken by Steve Wainwright on May 23, 2018 @ Blaengwynfi, South Wales, UK



Captured with Nicola Mackins AstroDMx Capture for Linux on a Fedora Linux laptop, a Skymax 127 Maksutov and an SVBONY W2568 high speed camera. Panorama of 4 overlapping panes

Saturday, May 26, 2018