Your favorite pictures

Sykk

May it be a planet, nebulae, stars, asteroids etc.. Share here!

One of my favs is definitely the Crab Nebula

The color and shape of it is just beautiful and yet at the same time, you can see the sheer violence that created it. In this case that the supernova absolutely and totally obliterated it's star.

Share yours!

whynotdo

great idea for a thread Sykk,i hope it becomes a Megathread!Great way too for the less eloquent of Posters like Myself to express the wondement We feel at A&S in pictures.This is one of many favourites i have,taken by the crew of Apollo 8 it was the first time Human eyes had laid eyes on Earthrise.

Sykk

whynotdo wrote: »

great idea for a thread Sykk,i hope it becomes a Megathread!Great way too for the less eloquent of Posters like Myself to express the wondement We feel at A&S in pictures.This is one of many favourites i have,taken by the crew of Apollo 8 it was the first time Human eyes had laid eyes on Earthrise.

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2001-000009.jpg

I was thinking of this pic when making the thread.. Really good one, that!

Cú Giobach

When I first saw this I must have stared at it for an hour and it is still one of my favorite pics.
Sunset on Mars.
.

Beeker

Cú Giobach wrote: »

When I first saw this I must have stared at it for an hour and it is still one of my favorite pics.
Sunset on Mars.
.
You beat me to it! That is also one of my favorites:)

Another one I like is this one. Not a great photo by itself but what it represents is magical. The Pale Blue Dot....


The Earth from 4 billion miles away. This picture was taken by Voyager 1 in 1991 as it approached the outer limits of our solar system.
As Carl Sagan put it "Everyone you know or ever knew, every human who ever lived.............lived there"

dlofnep

All classic pictures. I quite like this one.

Rubecula

Our Big neighbour, coming to a place near you in the distant future.



The Andromeda Galaxy.

ihavequestions

I love this: A swarm of ancient stars...

peterako

Astronomical Picture of the Day is a great way to start your day and put everything into a different perspective

Nice thread!

NoQuarter

Milky way!

djhaxman

The Horsehead Nebula - Barnard 33.

djhaxman

The Sombrero Galaxy - M104, so perfectly formed. Look at all the distant galaxies in the background of the photo too.

mysons

Can you post your own shots in this thread ?

Duff

N00b question which I apologize for but how exactly are these photos taken? Does hubble just point at a section of space for a period of time and let the light filter in? Are we effectively looking back in time? Amazing stuff.

Beeker

Duff wrote: »

N00b question which I apologize for but how exactly are these photos taken? Does hubble just point at a section of space for a period of time and let the light filter in? Are we effectively looking back in time? Amazing stuff.

Thats it exactly....and yes we are looking back in time. Because it takes light so long to reach us. Light travels very fast but it's speed is finite (186,000 miles per second) and space is very very big, so we see every object as it was when the light from that object left it. That can be about 1 second ago in the case of the Moon or 13 billion years ago in the case of the most distant galaxies.

djhaxman

Duff wrote: »

N00b question which I apologize for but how exactly are these photos taken? Does hubble just point at a section of space for a period of time and let the light filter in? Are we effectively looking back in time? Amazing stuff.

All you need to know about Hubble image processing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X45DFyAvMdU

Anyway, to continue this excellent thread - M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy, the first galaxy to be recognised as a spiral, here in Ireland

rccaulfield

Great thread!- Only 1 pic??:(:D

Heres my current favorite, it was taken by MESSENGER1 which is in orbit of and exploring Mercury. It turned to look at the Earth and moon and snapped this pic from 114 million miles away(so i'm told!) Really makes us look like a twin planet system rather then a planet- moon system!

Rubecula

One of the first things I saw through a telescope that got me excited as a kid was Saturn. You could almost sense the distance to the planet. I never did get to take a picture of it myself but to me it is still one of the most beautiful sights you can see. So I hereby include this picture, just because I love the sight.

whynotdo

This wonderful image of the plaque still sitting on the descent module stage of Apollo 11 on the Moons surface is second to none to our higher instincts, IMO.

NoQuarter

Solar eclipse shadow:



Some great desktop backgrounds in this thread!:)

Beeker

NoQuarter wrote: »

Solar eclipse shadow:



Some great desktop backgrounds in this thread!:)

Wow I like that!!:)

NoQuarter

Beeker wrote: »

Wow I like that!!:)

Yeah theres even a couple of chinese lanterns in the background

Beeker

NoQuarter wrote: »

Yeah theres even a couple of chinese lanterns in the background

:D:D The're everywhere:eek::rolleyes::pac::pac::pac::D

whynotdo

In 1994 a Comet called Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter breaking into over 20 pieces.Some of them shown here.

whynotdo

And this one the image is from Hubble but it too was first reported by an amateur Astronomer is from only last year.the article i found it in has not been updated recently but the caption says Scientists still do not know if it was a Meteor or a Comet?(again it is poor old Jupiter:))

Bohrio

Eta Carinae, one of my favourites.





If u look at the high def picture you can see the start exploding



(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/2/2a/20090619174741!Eta_Carinae_Nebula_1.jpg)

Shame we can't see it from Ireland!

Sykk

mysons wrote: »

Can you post your own shots in this thread ?

Ofcourse!

trebor28

Astro_Wheels on twitter is one of the astronauts in the ISS in orbit above the earth.
he regularly takes pics of the planet and other things in space.
someone else posted his link in another thread.
my particular fav is the one of the nile, its currently my desktop.

here is the link to this photo.
if you move the cursor over it it gives you an option to view it full size.
do it.

http://twitpic.com/2lp2z0

man.about.town

dlofnep wrote: »

All classic pictures. I quite like this one.

is that picture real or is it an artists impression? im very interested in space, i love watching documentaries on tv about them. what id love to know is that when you look through a telescope can you see planets clearly?

Sykk

Neptune's Great Dark Spot, accompanied by white high-altitude clouds - Voyager, ofcourse.

man.about.town

whynotdo wrote: »

This wonderful image of the plaque still sitting on the descent module stage of Apollo 11 on the Moons surface is second to none to our higher instincts, IMO.

wow thats very cool, that will be there for ever right? as far as i know, things dont decay in space, the first footprint is still crystal clear. that could actually be my favorite photo because of how symbolic it was. landing men on the moon must have been the greatest achievement of man kind. would you agree?

Plug

man.about.town wrote: »

wow thats very cool, that will be there for ever right? as far as i know, things dont decay in space, the first footprint is still crystal clear. that could actually be my favorite photo because of how symbolic it was. landing men on the moon must have been the greatest achievement of man kind. would you agree?

Unless it gets hit by a meteor. Don't worry we will go back to the moon and then to mars and behind within the next 50 years.

Cú Giobach

man.about.town wrote: »

is that picture real or is it an artists impression?

The image was captured by hubble about 15 years ago. Check out This and This.

slade_x

man.about.town wrote: »

as far as i know, things dont decay in space, the first footprint is still crystal clear.

Yes unless otherwise disturbed, as there is no atmosphere to create a wind on the moon. And yes you are correct, materials wont decay without other elements to interact with (for example how oxygen in our atmosphere reacts with other chemicals/ elements which we call oxidation)

c montgomery

I always liked this one

:p:p:p

c montgomery

On a more serious note, some great hubble pics:)








My favourate Hubble Pic below

djhaxman

While it may not look as impressive as a lot of the other images, this beast in the centre of the Abell 2029 cluster is IC 1101 - the largest known galaxy. It measures around 6 million light years across, (compare that to the Milky Way's 100,000), and is estimated to contain some 100 trillion stars.

dlofnep

I quite like this as a desktop BG: http://wallpapers-diq.net/wallpapers/11/Full_Moon_Space_Art.jpg

Sykk

djhaxman wrote: »

contain some 100 trillion stars.

100,000,000,000,000 :eek:

backboiler

man.about.town wrote: »

what id love to know is that when you look through a telescope can you see planets clearly?

Depends on the size of the telescope you use. The entire idea is that the fat end gathers light and concentrates it at the small end. The bigger the fat end, the more light it can gather.
I have a relatively low-end 102 mm (4 inch) one and can see the light and dark bands of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and should be able to make out the polar ice on Mars if I ever get a clear night when it's about again. Uranus is just a dot like a star.
You only see black and white planets with your eyes though. They're not sensitive enough to pick up colour with the amount of light gathered by that size of scope. A bigger one will probably let you make out colours.
You do see the colours of stars though.
If you whack a camera on it can do long exposures at high sensitivity and so "see" much richer colours. Why? Because more light is gathered over a long time than in a short time.
This is why scopes are sometimes referred to as "light buckets". I love that term; it's so dismissive but perfectly describes their purpose.

whynotdo

man.about.town wrote: »

that could actually be my favorite photo because of how symbolic it was. landing men on the moon must have been the greatest achievement of man kind. would you agree?

Yes i agree very much as do many others when it has come up for mention on previous threads on A&S.What makes it really special to me is that the people who achieved it are still alive in our lifetime and many people remember the actual moment(lucky devils),It was such a profound moment,and to think of all the millions of years Humankind had gazed at it in wonderment and worship! We are privledged to either have been alive for it, or been born after it had happened to view the photo's.

The beauty of the moment is it transcended all Races and Creeds and for a short spell We were truly united on this Planet of ours (dang i wish i was a poet or a songwriter so i could express how watching all about it makes Me feel:))

This according to NASA is the first ever footprint left on the Moon by Armstrong.


in case You have never seen 'in the shadow of the moon' the easiest way to see it is here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=in+the+shadow+of+the+moon&aq=f

The Hill Billy

Supernova 1987A

Wertz

Saturnian total eclipse from Cassini.




It ticks so many boxes and is just a great image.
Saturn.
Saturn's rings.
An eclipse.
Sun's coronasphere.
Pale blue dot (see full size picture, top left in outermost rings)
...and not taken from earth.

Hubble deep field is a close second.

Beeker

man.about.town wrote: »

wow thats very cool, that will be there for ever right? as far as i know, things dont decay in space, the first footprint is still crystal clear. that could actually be my favorite photo because of how symbolic it was. landing men on the moon must have been the greatest achievement of man kind. would you agree?

As a slightly side issue {Sorry to OP} There are actually only two photo's of Armstrong on the surface of the moon. This one


And this one {he is in the reflection of Aldrins visor}taken by armstrong himself:)


The reason was simply that Armstrong was assigned to take most of the photos and it never occured to them to get Aldrin to take a snap of Armstrong:)

The Hill Billy

Our nearest galactic neighbour:


I should have mentioned that this pic is from APOD today. Check out the original.

Plug

^^^^saw it as a small blure the other night, cool though!

Goldstein

A solar transit of the ISS & Atlantis by Thierry Legault:
http://www.astrophoto.fr/




Full size version here

whynotdo

A recent Hubble snap:

This image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the spectacular region around an object known as Herbig-Haro 502, a very small part of the vast stellar nursery in the picturesque Orion Nebula. An infant star is visible just left of center. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The narrow pink jet extending away to the upper right of the young star is part of an object called Herbig-Haro 502. Herbig-halo objects are glowing gaseous areas close to recently formed stars. They are created when very young stars eject gas at breakneck speeds — up to hundreds of kilometers per second — which heats the surrounding gas and causes it to glow.

thecommander

A friend of 12April1981s took this photo, had dinner with him after the 132 launch. This one is of the 123 launch and was a Nasa photo of the day and was on National Geographic aswell (i think)

He had special boxes built that are placed around 800 feet away from the pad that start shooting once the engines ignite and close up afterwards to shield from the exhaust. Remember standing in the carpark looking at the photos on the back of the camera. This was one of them



His site is www.ov-103.com , check it out, some great shots on it.