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Credit & Copyright: Ralf Rohner
Explanation:
Is the sky angry with Mount Shasta?
According to some ancient
legends, the spirits of above and below worlds fight there,
sometimes quite actively during eruptions of
this enormous volcano in
California,
USA.
Such drama can well be imagined in
this deep sky image
taken in late June.
Evident above the snow-covered peak is the
central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy, on the left, and a picturesque sky toward the
modern constellations of
Scorpius and
Ophiuchus, above and to the right.
The bright orange star
Antares and the
colorful rho Ophiuchi cloud complex are visible just
to the right of Mount Shasta, while the red emission nebula surrounding the star
zeta Ophiuchi
appears on the top right.
The static
earth
image in the
featured composite
was taken during the
blue hour,
while a two-panel panorama tracking the background sky
was taken later that night with the same camera and from the same location.
Within a few million years,
Antares, some stars in the
rho Ophiuchi system,
and zeta Ophiuchi will all
likely explode as
supernovas.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: night sky
Publications with words: night sky
See also: