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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Star Clusters Young and Old
10.09.2006
Many stars form in clusters. Galactic or open star clusters are relatively young swarms of bright stars born together near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Separated by about a degree...
Shadow Play
9.09.2006
During September 7th's lunar eclipse, the Moon slid through the Earth's shadow. Extending into space, Earth's cone-shaped shadow has two distinct parts, the lighter, outer part or penumbra, and the darker, inner shadow called the umbra. For this eclipse, the lunar disk just grazed the shadow's dark inner umbra.
Messier 110
8.09.2006
This very sharp telescopic vista features the last object in the modern version of Charles Messier's catalog of bright clusters and nebulae - Messier 110. A dwarf elliptical galaxy, M110 (aka NGC 205) is actually a bright satellite of the large spiral galaxy Andromeda, making M110 a fellow member of the local group of galaxies.
Colorful Moon Mosaic
7.09.2006
No single exposure can easily capture faint stars along with the subtle colors of the Moon. But this dramatic composite view highlights both. The mosaic digitally stitches together fifteen carefully exposed high resolution images of a bright, gibbous Moon and a representative background star field.
Green Aurora Over Lake Superior
6.09.2006
What if your horizon was green? If you've got a camera, take a picture! That was the experience of Jeff Hapeman last week when visiting the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. On a quiet night toward the northern horizon over Lake Superior was a long lasting diffuse green aurora.
Bright Cliffs Across Saturns Moon Dione
5.09.2006
What causes the bright streaks on Dione? Recent images of this unusual moon by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn are helping to crack the mystery. Close inspection of Dione's trailing hemisphere, pictured above, indicates that the white wisps are composed of deep ice cliffs dropping hundreds of meters.
The Large Magellanic Cloud in Infrared
4.09.2006
Where does dust collect in galaxies? To help find out, a team of researchers took the most detailed image ever of gas clouds and dust in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy.
Pluto in True Color
3.09.2006
Pluto is mostly brown. The above picture captures the true colors of Pluto as well as the highest surface resolution so far recovered. Although no spacecraft has yet visited this distant world, the New Horizons spacecraft launched early this year is expected to reach Pluto in 2015.
Dusty Spiral M66
2.09.2006
When morning twilight came to the Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their search for faint quasars, billions of light-years away. And just for a moment, they used Very Large Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory to appreciate the beauty of the nearby Universe.
Gemini South Star Trails
1.09.2006
Stars seem to arc through southern skies in this surrealistic time exposure -- recorded before moonrise from the Gemini South Observatory, Cerro Pachon, Chile, Planet Earth. During the one hour 40 minute exposure camera and tripod were fixed, so the concentric star trails are a reflection of Earth's daily rotation about its axis.
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