BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Astro Advent 2019

10

As the Earth turns, stars seem to move across the sky. The movement is too slow for the eye to follow, but a camera can capture it. Anton Komlev didn't just leave the shutter open, but took numerous exposures and added them digitally to produce this superb image.

The central focus is weathered lines of the remains of a tree. In the background, there are colorful concentric arcs around the south celestial pole below the horizon, and also around the north celestial pole off to the upper right. The different colors show the temperatures of the stars – blue stars are hotter than the Sun, red stars are cooler.

Star Trails [Click on the image to get the full effect.]

11

Nasa astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have made history by completing the first ever all-female spacewalk. They spent seven hours outside the International Space Station (ISS) replacing a failed power control unit.

This has taken nineteen years into the 21st century to happen. And this photo looks pretty much like other photos of astronauts at work outside the ISS.

Historic Spacewalk

12

Some of the deep sky's most beautiful sights are a spiral galaxies. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the beautiful spiral NGC 1566, also known as the Spanish Dancer.

It's some 40-50 million light years away from us in the southern constellation Dorado. There's a particularly bright center because it's a Seyfert-type galaxy, meaning that its nucleus contains an active black hole. [Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & Copyright: Leo Shatz]

Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy

13

There was a transit of Mercury in November. [Image: Ryan and Addison Cowley, Layton, Utah, USA]

This photo caught both Mercury and a passing aircraft between the Sun and Earth observers. Mercury is just a tiny dot. Look for it slightly above the center of the Sun. Sometimes sunspots make it confusing to find the transiting planet. However, there are no sunspots to be seen on this very quiet Sun.

Airplane and Mercury transit the Sun

14

The December full moon occurred on December 12th at 05:12 UTC. UTC is Coordinated Universal Time, which is the same as Greenwich Mean Time. Times of astronomical events are usually given in UTC - people can find their local time from that.

The local time for Angela Demetriou McClain of Botetourt County, Virginia, USA, was 12:12 a.m. on 12/12/2019, which is when she took her photo of the Moon. For those living in time zones westward of Virginia, the full moon happened on December 11. And for anyone living in the same time zone, but using a 24-hour clock, the time would have been 00:12.

The Last Full Moon of 2019

15

Mid-December sees one of the year's best meteor showers – the Geminids. [Image credit & copyright: Jack Fusco]

The photographer captured this scene in a single 10-second exposure near the 2017 Geminid peak. The setting is Lake Edith in Jasper National Park, in Alberta,Canada. The fireball dominates the sky, but there are also three fainter meteors. The faintest trail is in the center just above the V-shape of the landscape.

Geminid display in a Frozen Landscape

16

Juno is still returning amazing close-up images of Jupiter. This one features a mysterious black spot which the astronomers have nicknamed “The Abyss”. [Image: NASA, Juno, SwRI, MSSS; Processing & License: Gerald Eichstadt & Sean Doran]

The photo was taken in June 2019 when Juno passed Jupiter at just 15,000 km above the cloud tops. Dark features tend to be deeper than lighter colored ones, so it could, in fact, be a deep hole in the clouds. But no one knows. It's certainly another stunning image from the giant planet.

The Abyss on Jupiter [Click on the image to enlarge.]

17

A natural color view of the moon Dione seen against the background of Saturn. [Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute]

This is a composite created from images taken with the Cassini-Huygens probe's wide-angle camera at a distance of about 603,000 km from Dione. Saturn shows lovely warm tones, but although Dione has strong variations in brightness, it's lacking in color.

Dione and Saturn

Hello Mona,

What another magical picture (13)! Is that full stop in the centre of the sun I 'see' Mercury?

Stunning photography.

Thank you for all.

Cheers

Yes, Lestie, what looks like a full stop is, in fact, Mercury. Mercury is very small and the Sun is very big - it's quite a contrast. Glad you're enjoying the pictures. Thanks for dropping by the forum.