Astrophotos | Universe Today

Even though most of us have been suffering from poor seeing conditions due to both hemisphere's seasonal climate changes, the changes we're experiencing look like nothing compared to what's happening on Jupiter. If you think we've got turbulent atmosphere and more than our fair share of clouds – then check out what John Chumack's been watching! Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, Jupiter | 4 Comments »

What a gorgeous and immense image! And it's full of stars! An astronomer from Central Michigan University has put together a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky , with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger stitched together over 3,000 images to create this beautiful image, which also comes in an interactive version, showing stars 1,000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, milky way | 13 Comments »

Far away in the constellation of Aries, in a 14th magnitude barred spiral galaxy designated as NGC 918… a star exploded with enough candlepower to briefly outshine its home. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan) on October 11, 2009, this Type II supernova might be hiding in the intergalactic dust, but it isn't hiding from Joe Brimacombe. Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos | 11 Comments »

The Crescent Nebula, also known as NGC 6888, is a very well renown and most intriguing object located in the constellation Cygnus in the northern hemisphere. At an apparent size of about 18 by 13 arc-minutes it is a very pale nebula. Even in a moderate amateur telescope you can't quite see this one unless you have absolute dark skies (or narrow band filters) and a decent "light bucket". So how do we get a chance to study it? Photographically, of course… Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos | 63 Comments »

"Now the circle is complete. When I left you, I was but the learner, and now…" Oh, sorry, different triology. The third image of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project has just been released online, completing this eye-opening dive into a galaxy not so far away; our own Milky Way. This third installment provides another breathtaking vista of an astronomical object, this time a 370-million-pixel view of the Lagoon Nebula with the quality and depth needed by professional astronomers in their quest to understand our Universe.
Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos | 2 Comments »

Our "Astro Art" feature needs a catchier name, and frankly we need more people to read this feature or it will be toast. So here's the new name: Battlestar Photoshopica, suggested by UT reader Dave Finton. And spread the word about these very cool posts which showcase our readers' prowess with digital image editing software. Here's this week's edition, which is probably the cutest image we've ever received. This is Otto the Dachshund, created by Ralph Petrozello. Otto is on his way to Pluto. Really. This image was chosen by The Planetary Society to be part of the New Horizons Digital Time Capsule, on board the New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Pluto. The time capsule consists of photographs of things in 2006 that people expect will be transformed by 2015, when the spacecraft arrives at Pluto. Only fifty photos were selected, and this is one of them.

Ralph told us more about this image:
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos | 9 Comments »

A group of MIT students have launched a low-budget satellite to near space, taking images of the curvature of Earth and the blackness of space. Their approach was to use low tech, off the shelf equipment, which included a Styrofoam beer cooler, a camera from eBay, open source software and an inexpensive helium balloon as the launch vehicle in order to do their complete mission launch for less than $150. Total cost? $148. The experience? Priceless, including getting interviewed on CNN and Fox News about their achievement. The best news for the rest of us? They'll soon be sharing an illustrated step-by-step guide on how to launch your own low-budget satellite.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, Citizen Science, Space Flight | 9 Comments »

Last week the GigaGalaxy Zoom project introduced an interactive 360-degree panorama of the entire night sky, and they promised more zoomable images to come. The second of three images is now available, and it is a wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our galactic home. Taken by Stéphane Guisard, an ESO engineer and world-renowned astrophotographer, the image shows the region spanning the sky from the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) to Scorpius (the Scorpion). This mosaic was assembled from 52 different sky fields made from about 1200 individual images totalling 200 hours exposure time, with the final image having a size of 24,403 x 13,973 pixels. Click on the image to get access to larger versions of the image. Jump right in and enjoy the views!
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, IYA 2009 | Comments Off

This picture is from last week; September 9, 2009 to be exact, but I still wanted to share it. I just got in touch with photographer Clair Perry from Prince Edward Island, Canada to get his permission to post the image. No, this is not a comet. Pictured is space shuttle Discovery executing a water dump. The shuttle needed to get rid of excess waste water before landing the next day, and jettisoned it overboard via the waste water dump line, creating a spectacular visual effect as sunlight hit the spraying water. This dump occurred just as the shuttle was flying over North America last week, and lots of people witnessed this "toilet flush." Some reports indicated it was "pristine" water (the shuttle fuel cells' by-product is water) and other reports said it was "waste water and urine" (the Bad Astronomer called it Constellation Urion). Whatever, it was pretty. NASA said this was an unusually large dump, about 150 pounds (68 kg), because new regulations say no shuttle water dumps can take place while docked to the ISS, so as not to contaminate the outdoor experiments on the Kibo lab.

See below for the spectacular entire image, which also includes the nearby ISS creating a streak in the sky. Thanks to Clair Perry for sharing his images.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, Space Shuttle | 12 Comments »

Art and astronomy often intersect, and it's wonderful when art can provide an emotional connection to science. Amateur astronomer and artist Sayward Duffano has captured the personalities of several astronomers through history as well as individuals in astronomy related fields in a gallery of paintings she created especially for the International Year of Astronomy. "I knew I wanted to paint something special for the IYA," she said. "So last year I had started painting a few astronomers, some planets, and some other types of astro art."

And Sayward says she is looking for a place to display her work.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos, IYA 2009 | Comments Off

Paolo Beltrame from Italy sent us this amazing montage of images he took of space shuttle Discovery docked to the ISS on September 1, 2009. See the incredible details visible of the space station and docked shuttle! Paolo is with the Circolo AStrofili Talmassons (Amateur Astronomers Club in Talmassons, or CAST) who have an impressive observatory (take a look at Paolo's website). He took these selected images from a 2-minute movie taken with a TourcamPro webcam. As impressive as Paolo's astrophotos are, however, he says his real passion is viewing the night sky with the naked eye. His motto is "Lasciate che i fotoni vengano a me!" (Let the photons come to me!) See a close up of Paolo's best shot of the ISS/shuttle below, as well as images from other astrophotographers of Tuesday evening's pass of the shuttle and ISS as they flew in tandem after Discovery undocked from the station on Tuesday afternoon. There's also video from the shuttle's flyaround.
Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos, Observing, Space Shuttle, Space Station | 1 Comment »

Ever try to imagine what cities on other planets or moons might look like? Universe Today reader Alan Lipkin put his imagination to work for this week's edition of Astro Art. But do you recognize the different images Alan Photoshopped together to create this very futuristic city? "It is Saturn's moon Phoebe with New York City inserted in the craters Jason and Erginus," Alan revealed. Additionally, a portion of the Wild Duck Cluster is the backdrop.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos | 5 Comments »

Anyone ask you that question this morning? Jupiter was only 3 degrees from the Moon last night, making a pretty (and bright!) conjuction. I put out a call on Twitter last night for pictures of the event, and here are a few that were shared. Above is one taken by Kevin Jung in Grand Rapids, Michigan USA. Click the picture for more of Kevin's images. Also, if you looked at Jupiter with a telescope last night (Sept 2) at 4:43 to 6:29 Universal Time (12:43 a.m. to 2:29 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time) you may have also noticed something was missing: Jupiter's moons were hiding! Ganymede and Europa passed in front of the giant planet, while Io and Callisto will passed behind Jupiter (from our point of view) making it nearly impossible to visually detect any moons around Jupiter. Our own Brian Ventrudo explains all on his site One Minute Astronomer. And here's some more images from the conjuction:
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos | 4 Comments »

This week's Astro Art was submitted by Assi Süer, a 20 year-old amateur astronomer and astrophysics student from Sweden. She has been sketching and painting since she was young. Since space shuttle Discovery is now docked at the International Space Station for the STS-128 mission, Assi's sketches seemed fitting for this week, especially since her fellow Swede, Christer Fugelsang, is on board. "He has inspired me, and many more, to never give up," Assi said. "Even a Swede can become an astronaut, but only if we work hard for it. It is, of course, nothing wrong with Swedes, but it's hard for us because we're such a small part of the European Space Agency."

"'Failure is not an option' is my favorite quote," Assi said, "because failure definitely isn't an option for me, if I'm going to one day work for ESA, which is my dream. So I'm going to do everything to not fail."

Below is another of her sketches of space shuttles.
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos | Comments Off

This week's featured Astro Art was created by Universe Today reader Bhavya Mittal. Bhavya calls it "Music combines the soul and the heavens," and explains the image: "On the bottom left is the most dangerous black hole identified till now. On the top right is the Crab Nebula, and below it, as you can see, is our dear Solar System. This image shows that when you are totally engrossed in music,you really get the feel of the Universe. At least I have felt it!"
Read more…

Filed under: Astrophotos | 5 Comments »