Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 6 January 2019
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 1/1/2019. The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M104) in infra-red:-
That central portion is much less transparent in visible light – photo from Wikipedia:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 5 January 2019
The image of galaxy NGC 1365 on Astronomy Picture of the Day for 28/12/18 is under copyright by Martin Pugh so I shan’t reproduce it here.
But I urge you to pop over via the link on the date.
Why does this remind me of a spider?
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 4 January 2019
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 3/1/2019.
Ultime Thule from 28,000 kilometres away. This object is 6.5 billion* kilometres from the Sun. Astounding that we can get to see this.
As the pictures continue to stream in they’ll be even better I’m sure.
*(I assume that’s 65,000,000,000 not 65,000,000,000,000.)
Posted in Astronomy at 12:00 on 24 December 2018
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 23/12/18. A video reconstruction of the famous Earthrise, photographed by Apollo 8’s astronauts, fifty years ago today.
Posted in Astronomy at 12:00 on 13 December 2018
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 11/12/18.
A beautiful Hubble Telescope photo of the Tadpole Galaxy:-
They could have nicknamed this something else but I suppose discretion prevailed.
Posted in Curiosities at 21:00 on 3 December 2018
I came across this on Astronomy Picture of the Day, for 26/11/18. I missed it on the day as I was away.
It’s a view of the launch of a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome as seen from the International Space Station and the video compresses 15 minutes into 90 seconds.
It’s not strictly speaking astronomy so I haven’t categorised it as such.
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 14 November 2018
This one is 101955 Bennu as featured in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 13/11/2018 and photographed by the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer aka (OSIRIS-REx) on its mission to map the asteroid’s surface.
The video collapses Bernnu’s 4.25 hour day into 7 seconds:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:30 on 23 October 2018
It’s amazing what some of the images from Astronomy Picture of the Day resemble.
This one is from 20/10/18. The halo round the Cat’s Eye Nebula. I’ve not reproduced it here for copyright reasons but click on the link to see it.
To me it looks like a jellyfish.
The central nebula itself, NGC 6543, looks like this in X-ray and visible light:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 13 October 2018
From the Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft via Astronomy Picture of the Day for 10/10/2018.
Filmed in ultraviolet light, a solar prominence almost looping the loop:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 11 October 2018
Another lovely picture from Astronomy Picture of the Day, this time from 9/10/18.
Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672:-
