Long Stem Rosette

A present for Valentine's Day.

Explanation: The Rosette Nebula (aka NGC 2237) is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers. But it is the one most often suggested as a suitable astronomy image for Valentine's Day. Of the many excellent Rosette Nebula pictures submitted to APOD editors, this view seemed most appropriate, with a long stem of glowing hydrogen gas in the region included in the composition. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula is about 50 light-years in diameter. Happy Valentine's Day!

Credit & Copyright: Adam Block (Caelum Observatory) and Tim Puckett

Two more posts today.

Venus and Jupiter in Morning Skies

I find myself busy with burst pipes under the kitchen sink and lots of water to mop up. So, instead of writing anything, here is a lovely picture to reward you for visiting. And reassure Julie that I'm fine.


Explanation: These two celestial beacons shining brightly in the east before sunrise are actually children of the Sun, the planets Venus and Jupiter. The second and third brightest objects in the sky at Night after the Moon, Venus and Jupiter appeared separated by about 2 degrees when this picture was taken on January 30th, but closed to within nearly half a degree early yesterday morning. In the serene foreground is the shoreline along the Miankaleh Peninsula and Gorgan Bay, an important bird and wildlife refuge in the southeastern Caspian Sea. Over the next two days, early morning risers around the globe will be able to enjoy a close pairing of Venus and Jupiter with an old crescent Moon.
From Astronomy Picture of the Day: NASA
Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN) Click to enlarge.

Andromeda Island Universe

This photo from The Astronomy Picture of the Day, courtesy of NASA, is so lovely that I had to share it. And, since I'm working on a post for tomorrow or the next day, I'm using it as my "checking in so Julie knows I'm OK" post for today. Do click and enlarge -- the bigger it is, the more you can see.

Explanation: The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, a bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, gorgeous blue spiral arms and star clusters are recorded in this stunning telescopic digital mosaic. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept only 80 years ago. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" -- distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.

Credit & Copyright: Tony Hallas

Starry Night Castle

Starry Night Castle
Credit & Copyright: P-M Hedén

Explanation: The tantalizing Pleiades star cluster seems to lie just beyond the trees above a dark castle tower in this dramatic view of The World at Night. Recorded earlier this month, the starry sky also features bright star Aldebaran below the Pleiades and a small, faint, fuzzy cloud otherwise known as Comet Holmes near picture center at the top of the field. Starry Night Castle might be an appropriate name for the medieval castle ruin in the foreground. But its traditional name is Mörby Castle, found north of Stockholm, near lake Skedviken in Norrtälje, Sweden.

NASA's web site has some of the loveliest pictures I've ever seen. Here is one for you to enjoy.

picture and text, NASA.gov Astronomy Picture of the Day

Helix Nebula

Hairy eyeballs from deep space: An infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a photo fave of amateur astronomers. The nebula, about 700 light years away in the constellation Aquarius, surrounds a tiny white dwarf (dot in center). The red indicates the final layers of gas blown out when the star died.

I don't have all that much to say today, and here is this lovely picture, so I thought I would share it with you.

Photo NASA; text SFGate.com

The Perfect Spiral

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI / AURA)- ESA / Hubble Collaboration
Acknowledgment: R. Chandar (Univ. Toledo) and J. Miller (Univ. Michigan)

Explanation: If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as an Sc galaxy, the grand design of M74's graceful spiral arms are traced by bright blue star clusters and dark cosmic dust lanes. Constructed from image data recorded in 2003 and 2005, this sharp composite is from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Spanning about 30,000 light-years across the face of M74, it includes exposures recording emission from hydrogen atoms, highlighting the reddish glow of the galaxy's large star-forming regions.

I am posting the pretty picture today because the world is too much with me, late and soon. The political landscape is so ugly, so rotted, so depraved that I can't write about it, and yet to write about anything else would be trivial. So, here is a picture of something that is both beautiful and non-trivial.

Photo and text from Astronomy Picture of the Day. Do click and enlarge.

Moon Over Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Moon Over Pigeon Point Lighthouse
Credit & Copyright: Tyler Westcott

Explanation: This spectacular sky is mostly human-made. Once a year, the Light Station at Pigeon Point near San Francisco, California, USA is lit as it was over 100 years ago. During this time, light generated by five kerosene lamps pours through 24 rotating Fresnel lenses, warning approaching ships to stay away. Early last week, light emanating from the Pigeon Point Lighthouse was particularly picturesque because of a thin fog, also blurring the distant Moon. During the latter 1970s, the lighthouse was guarded by an 800 pound pig named Lester. In modern times, the light house is still active but has been supplied with a more efficient flashing aerobeacon.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

A Thing of Beauty

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula
Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA

Explanation: The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Pictured above is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation much hotter than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is a growing cavity filled with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars. The above image in scientifically re-assigned colors was released as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Do click to enlarge.
Photo and text courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day

Forest and Sky

Credit & Copyright: Vincent Jacques
Explanation: With pine trees in dim silhouette, this skyscape from Breil-sur-Roya in southern France was captured on November 11. In the early evening scene, a satellite seems to streak through the branches, while bright, round, fuzzy Comet Holmes appears to lie just beyond them, near the stars of the constellation Perseus. Mirfak, alpha star of Perseus, is the brightest star above the comet and to the right. Next Monday (November 19), Holmes will be close enough to Mirfak to view the star through the remarkable comet's expanding coma. Recent measurements place the dusty coma's diameter at about 1.4 million kilometers, even larger than the Sun.

Ed.'s Note: Predawn skies this weekend will feature the Leonids Meteor Shower.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day

Peculiar Arp 87

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)

Explanation: A cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust stretches for over 75,000 light-years and joins this peculiar pair of galaxies cataloged as Arp 87. The bridge is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging the galaxies and surrounded by a curious polar ring. While such interactions are drawn out over billions of years, repeated close passages should ultimately result in the merger of this pair of galaxies into a larger single galaxy of stars. Although this scenario does look peculiar, galactic mergers are thought to be common, with Arp 87 representing a stage in this inevitable process. The Arp 87 pair are about 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation Leo. The prominent edge-on spiral at the far left appears to be a more distant background galaxy and not involved in the on-going merger.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Elephant's Trunk

The Elephant's Trunk in IC 1396
Credit & Copyright: Brian Lula

The Milky Road*

The Milky Road
Credit & Copyright: Larry Landolfi

Explanation: Inspired during a visit to Fort Davis, Texas, home of McDonald Observatory and dark night skies, photographer Larry Landolfi created this tantalizing fantasy view. The composited image suggests the Milky Way is a heavenly extension of a deserted country road. Of course, the name for our galaxy, the Milky Way (in Latin, Via Lactea), does refer to its appearance as a milky band or path in the sky. In fact, the word galaxy itself derives from the Greek for milk. Visible on moonless nights from dark sky areas, though not so colorful as in this image, the glowing celestial band is due to the collective light of myriad stars along the plane of our galaxy, too faint to be distinguished individually. The diffuse starlight is cut by dark swaths of obscuring galactic dust clouds. At the beginning of the 17th century, Galileo turned his telescope on the Milky Way and announced it to be composed of innumerable stars.

* Picture and text from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Pale Blue Dot

With thanks to Carl Sagan.

Lovely To Look At

Go here.

See a truly beautiful sight.

Because It's There

My friend Pseub, knowing how I love the stars, sent me pictures of the ten photos voted as the best taken by Hubble in the past 16 years. I started to publish my favorites, but for some reason I couldn't copy them from her e-mail, so I went out with Google Image and found them. So, Pseub, these aren't exactly the shots you sent. I don't know why having heard about the death of Molly Ivins makes me want to share these with you, but it does. Perhaps because her soul and her mind were every bit as unexpectedly magical as these pictures -- that these could be taken, that her columns could be written, are such a celebration of the human reach.

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes.

The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

In A Nutshell follows.

Shit, Stars!

Have I told you that I love the stars? Considered going into astronomy, wanted to be an astronaut? When I was 12, checked to see how old I'd be when Haley's Comet returned? Really, really, really love the stars. And that I seldom get to see them, here in Juneau. First, from late spring through summer to early fall, the sun doesn't set far enough to get dark, so no stars for over half the year. The rest of the year, we have clouds that keep the stars hidden more than we have clear skies. And enough moisture in the air to make our starry nights less than the wonder that they are in the high desert. None-the-less, just about a block uphill from my place, the road curves and you are suddenly out of civilization. No more houses. No more light pollution. You are in a canyon, so you don't have much horizon. Actually, you have a small slit of sky. But, on clear winter nights the stars crowd into that small slit and are just breath taking.

I've mentioned that we've had a lot of snow. The newspaper tells me, 44.1 inches in recent storms. So, what I've mainly seen when I was outside or looked outside was white stuff -- falling from the sky, laying on the ground, clogging the roads, coating the trees. Pretty as a picture, but causing lots of problems. And, to go with it, cloudy skies -- when we could see them at all.

And then, the clouds cleared. Bright blue sky. Cheerful feeling to the air. Spring in the step, even the step of folks like me who walk with sticks. Ah, the world goes on, hope springs and all of that good stuff. So nice to see a sky that isn't gray. Of course, since we have all become accustomed to living in the semi-gloom, we squint our eyes and tilt our heads, not quite sure what that swatch of color overhead is about. Small children cry because the familiar sky seems to have broken. The rest of us, not unlike vampires, skuttle between buildings, hoping to escape this strange condition unscathed.

It is not an unmixed blessing -- we all know that without the mediating effect of the clouds, the heat will dissipate and the world will be colder. And, sure enough it is -- it dropped from 34 degrees to 15. The worst is night, when all the heat from the day escapes out into the sky, leaving us without our safety blanket. So, is it any wonder that as I walk up the stairs to my bedroom, I look out the skylight and mutter, "Shit. Stars."