Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2007 August 24
Explanation: Jupiter is an astronomer's planet -- its large size and contrasting global cloud belts and zones allow detailed studies with a range of earthbound telescopes. On the other hand, most telescopic views of Jupiter's moons usually show only featureless, tantalizing points of light hovering near the ruling gas giant. But this impressive picture from a small, ground-based telescope reveals a stunning amount of detail on Ganymede, a jovian moon about the same size as Earth's moon but at least 1,500 times farther away. The image was carefully constructed by combining and processing only the 409 sharpest frames from a total of 10,000 recorded at 30 frames per second by a digital camera. Ganymede's radius is about 2,600 kilometers indicating that the surface markings visible are as small as around 900 kilometers across.
As I looked thru the postings of their earlier days I found Sagitarrius...
and since I'm a Sagitarrium (is that 1 r or 2? (smile)
2007 August 4
Explanation: These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the nebula below and right of center, and colorful M20 at the upper right. The third, NGC 6559, is left of M8, separated from the the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula while M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. This stunning digital view is actually a collaborative composite recorded by 2 cameras and 2 telescopes about 2 thousand miles apart. The deep, wide image field was captured under dark Arizona skies. Both M8 and M20 were recorded in more detail from an observatory in Pennsylvania. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. Tomorrow's picture: spotted dunes
Hi Beth,Mary
Hi Beth,
This is fascinating, Astronomy is one of my little Hobbies that I enjoy in my Spare Time, LOL, however, I'm afraid my Telescope's nothing like this.
Have An Amazing Weekend,
Phil
thanks Phil,
Glad you like the pics!you have an amazing weekend also!
Beth