Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[davenn]

Yup, It's a great shot of the South Island. I believe your old neighborhood is in this one if I'm not mistaken.

just off the frame a bit beyond the head of the arrow

 

[DennisN]

Mimas over Saturn:
(Source: http://phys.org/news/2017-06-image-mimas-saturn-north-pole.html)

http://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2017/2-imagesaturns.jpgTo @Andy Resnick and others:

'Focus stacking' is a little different than 'astrophotography stacking'. For focus stacking, I use CombineZP (also free) It's a little tricky and I generally don't get 'awesome' results, but it's better than nothing. Let me know if you find something better...

Andy, I've stumbled upon two links I'd like to share:

Focus stacking (with Photoshop):
Photoshop Playbook: How to Blend Multiple Images with Different Depths of Field (youtube)

Noise reduction stacking
(a method with Photoshop and some other software, I doubt it's better than DeepSkyStacker, but anyway):
A Look at Reducing Noise in Photographs Using Median Blending

We have very cloudy skies over here at the moment, and no noise reduction method will fix that... I am waiting for clear skies...

 

[DennisN]

(downloadable pdf:s from NASA)

"Hubble 25: A Quarter-Century of Discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope"
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/hubble_25_detail.html

"Earth As Art"
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/earth_art_detail.html

and more NASA e-Books here:
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html

 

[1oldman2]

I figure this thread has room for one more awesome shot of a familiar planet.

 

[1oldman2]

From, https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170615.html

 

[davenn]

wonderful photo of red sprites
I have yet to photo these, still on my bucket list

I have a stormchaser friend that photo's them quite often ... here's an example ...

Marko Korošec shared Weather-Photos.NET's photo.
What more to ask after a great chase day? Red sprites, of course! Been chasing all day this past Sunday and when returning back I stopped at some elevated spot to shoot some TLE over quite distant MCS cluster in N Serbia. Got this family of pretty bright red sprites above it. June 25th, 2017, SW Slovenia.

cheers
Dave

 

[1oldman2]

I agree, those things are amazing to look at. I wonder, without video, would anyone ever get lucky enough to photo them? seems like even on "burst" setting a still camera shot would be extremely long odds of recording them. I notice there seems to be many more Sprite images out there than the Blue Jets, are the Sprites more common ?.

 

[OmCheeto]

I figure this thread has room for one more awesome shot of a familiar planet.
View attachment 206234

I devoted an entire thread to that image about 6 years ago. I think I looked at it too closely.
Of course, that was before Marcus got me hooked on Ceres, so some of the things I said appear to be incorrect.
It is a composite, just not what I would have called "composite" back then.

 

[mfb]

An actual photo from Saturn's rings, taken by Cassini (only cleaned to remove cosmic rays and detector noise). Source

 

[Andy Resnick]

Ring Nebula (M57): first image is full frame (800/5.6), 1h 46m exposure, second is a 1:1 crop.

Lots of objects are in view now (for me): Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto are all favorably positioned and Cygnus is coming into view. One more clear night to see if I can capture Pluto...

 

[davenn]

I agree, those things are amazing to look at. I wonder, without video, would anyone ever get lucky enough to photo them?

yeah, all the time as with that photo I posted above

the usual way is just to do a string of timed exposures, as Marko did

 

[johnsherdy10]

According to the this wiki image page, this is a picture of the far side of the Moon:
View attachment 204027

NASA source: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS16-M-3021
A higher resolution image is here.

I guess this is Earth more hunred years because trash of people in the Earth

 

[Andy Resnick]

Back from vacation, busy doing class prep. It was cloudy every night, so I ended up making timelapse 'videos', here's two of them: one frame was acquired every minute, starting around 6pm and going until I passed out around 2am

A good one, managed to hold a constant exposure during an illumination change of 24 stops:


The best one- see the (near) full moonrise, a thunderstorm, lots of activity.


Enjoy!

 

[DennisN]

Very nice, @Andy Resnick!

 

[Andy Resnick]

5 hours of viewing (400/2.8 ISO 640) over the past 2 weeks:

not bad!

 

[DennisN]

Stunning, @Andy Resnick!

 

[Andy Resnick]

A few images of the starfield in Cygnus: the first one is about 3 fields of view at 400mm (full frame) covering most of the North American nebula and the second is the veil nebula, nearly filling a single field of view (at 400mm). The density of stars is really striking.

 

[davenn]

A few images of the starfield in Cygnus: the first one is about 3 fields of view at 400mm (full frame) covering most of the North American nebula and the second is the veil nebula, nearly filling a single field of view (at 400mm). The density of stars is really striking.

very cool images mate, well done

 

[1oldman2]

A cool shot of Jupiter on NASA's image of the day.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Great ISS flyover this evening:

 

[ISamson]

 

[ISamson]

Cassini's picture of Saturn with the Sun behind Saturn

 

[ISamson]

Predicted view from the moon Titan.

 

[UsableThought]

Cassini's picture of Saturn with the Sun behind Saturn

Very nice!

Meanwhile, no satellite, no flyby, no animation, no photos, no video, no NASA tech crew - nothing but birding binoculars and naked eye; but as a total beginner I was pleased to get my own first-time view of Saturn last night, a very bright dot just below and to the left of the equally bright waxing crescent moon. The dot really did seem gold in color; I thought this might be my imagination until I looked it up.

 

[sas3]

Nice what setup did you use

 

[davenn]

Nice what setup did you use

who are you referring to ??

if you don't quote the post you are responding to you are not likely to get an answer to your question

 

[sas3]

Great ISS flyover this evening:

Let's try that again...

Nice what setup did you use

 

[Andy Resnick]

Let's try that again...

Nice what setup did you use

Nothing fancy- my telephoto lens (800/5.6) and a tripod. TIF images acquired @ 1/1600s, ISO 800. No mirror lock-up, etc.

 

[1oldman2]

Some notes on perspective,
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/osiris-rex-snaps-pictures-of-earth-and-the-moon
"This black-and-white image of the Earth-Moon system was captured on Sept. 25, 2017 by NavCam 1, one of three cameras that comprise TAGCAMS (the Touch-and-Go Camera System) on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft . At the time this image was taken, the spacecraft was retreating from Earth after performing an Earth Gravity Assist maneuver on Sept. 22. Earth and the Moon are shown 249,000 miles (401,200 kilometers) apart, and the spacecraft is 804,000 miles (1,297,000 kilometers) from Earth and 735,000 miles (1,185,000 kilometers) from the Moon."

 

[ISamson]

 

[ISamson]

Black holes rule!

 

[1oldman2]

Black holes rule!

View attachment 212408

This pretty much rules also.
http://eventhorizontelescope.org/

This is a worthwhile use of hard drive space, hours of fun. (you won't be disappointed). I recommend beginning with a tour of "Universal Beauty" in honor of this thread)
https://aas.org/posts/news/2017/10/try-worldwide-telescope-web
The home site https://aas.org/ is also highly recommended if you don't already use it.

 

[Copernicus45]

Captured in one of NASA's observatory in 2016. It is 20,000 light years away.
This is called the Art of Science.
Not literally. But this is very beautiful. Majestic.

 

[davenn]

Captured in one of NASA's observatory in 2016. It is 20,000 light years away.

can you please give a link to the origin of that image ( a good thing to always do)
I would like to identify it

 

[Copernicus45]

can you please give a link to the origin of that image ( a good thing to always do)
I would like to identify it

this is the link of the website the image was taken from
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/stunning-space-photos-2016/

 

[DennisN]

Deep Star Maps
Visualizations by Ernie Wright Released on January 17, 2012
(from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)

"This set of star maps was created by plotting the position, brightness, and color of just over 100 million stars from the Bright Star, Tycho-2, and UCAC3 star catalogs. The constellation boundaries are those established by the International Astronomical Union in 1930. The constellation figures also come from the IAU, although they're not official."

Page with downloadable contents: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3895

 

[Borg]

From today's APOD - Where Your Elements Came From

 

[ISamson]

From today's IPOD - Where Your Elements Came From

View attachment 213662

What a good diagram! Where did you find it?

 

[Borg]

What a good diagram! Where did you find it?

My mistake. It should have said APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). Just click the link in the original post.

 

[ISamson]

Ah. Nice.
Thanks.

 

[DennisN]

From today's APOD - Where Your Elements Came From https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171024.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171024.html
A very cool periodic table!

 

[SciencewithDrJ]

From today's APOD - Where Your Elements Came From

View attachment 213662

Thank you for sharing that. I was trying to come up with a list of my own for a presentation, but this is super clear.

 

[ISamson]

This artist’s illustration represents the scientific capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Both imaging and spectroscopy will be central to the Webb mission.
Credits: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

 

[Borg]

I'm goofing off too much. My first thought at seeing that was Settlers of Catan.

 

[Andy Resnick]

The Pleiades are coming into view (for me) now. it also warmed up a bit, so being outside wasn't totally unpleasant:

A cropped and de-scaled version of the original [2h 20m total integration time, 400/4 (to get the 'sunstars') ISO 800].

 

[Andy Resnick]

"American Scientist" recently had an impressive photo essay (via Cassini) of Saturn's rings:

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/cassini-and-the-rings-of-saturn

 

[DennisN]

Some nice spacey wallpapers here... : Earth From Space
e.g.

 

[DennisN]

Warning! The following link may steal more time from you than you intended. :)

astrometry - astronomy group on Flickr, 7000+ members, 73'000+ photos, 163 discussions
http://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry/pool/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry/pool/
Example:

 

[Andy Resnick]

After a long winter's nap, the weather is becoming more conducive for astrophotography here in cleve-o. Last night I got this image of the Flame and Horsehead nebulae in Orion:

Total acquisition time: 2 hours with my 400/2.8 wide-open. Single frame info: 10 s, ISO 800. Not bad for urban viewing conditions!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Rosette nebula:

2h total acquisition time @ 400/2.8, ISO 800... this is definitely one of the trickier ones.