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The astro advent for 2019 is about to begin. I hope you'll enjoy the people and the photos of our beautiful cosmos.
And to everyone:
Greetings and Good Wishes to you all for whatever winter holidays you celebrate.
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1The Watcher is the winner of the Aurorae category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019. The competition runs annually at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in England, sponsored by Insight Investment. Over 4600 entries were submitted this year.German photographer Nicolai Brügger hiked in the snow to the top of the mountain Offersøykammen in Norway's Lofoten Islands. At last, sometime after midnight, the Northern Lights appeared, and what his photograph takes my breath away. The Watcher
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2The Moon and Jupiter above the Winter Triangle, photographed by astrophotographer John Chumack on a clear Iowa night.Astronomical winter doesn't begin until the solstice, but in the northern hemisphere, meteorological winter is definitely here in December. Jupiter is the bright object just above and to the left of the Moon. The Triangle is below it. There's Betelgeuse in Orion, with Procyon slightly above and to its left. Sirius, closest to the horizon, completes the triangle. The Moon and Jupiter above the Winter Triangle
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3Sunrise over Gale Crater, photographed by the Curiosity rover on November 30, 2019.The image was tweeted by NASA's Doug Ellison, official Engineering Camera Payload Uplink Lead. He explained that the photo is in black and white because color takes more data volume, and isn't needed for an engineering camera. Although this was a money saver back in 2003, the 2020 rover’s Engineering Cameras will be the first to be in color. Dawn over Gale Crater, Mars
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4The telescope known as the Leviathan of Parsonstown was built in the early 1840s. It was the biggest telescope in the world for seven decades.The Leviathan was designed and built by the Third Earl of Rosse at Birr Castle in Ireland. It was powerful enough for Lord Rosse to be the first to discern the spiral nature of some nebulae, which we now know as spiral galaxies. The photograph [credit: Birr Castle] is of the reconstructed telescope which is open to visitors. The Leviathan of Parsonstown
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5Sadly, former cosmonaut Alexi Leonov died in October. He was the first person to make a spacewalk, and had the Soviet manned-Moon program been successful, might have pipped Neil Armstrong to the Moon.Leonov was more than a retired spacefarer. He and Apollo astronaut David Scott wrote a dual memoir on the space race in Two Sides of the Moon. And as an artist since his youth, Leonov had taken paper and colored pencils into space in order to sketch. On Earth, he painted numerous scenes of space. "The First Spacewalk” by Alexei Leonov
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6The amazing French photographer Thierry Legault not only captured the July 2019 total solar eclipse, but he doubled the effect by getting its reflection in a lake.The eclipse was to be low on the horizon, and Legault looked for a still lake to get the reflection. He could have been unlucky with the wind, but the water was unruffled, and the outcome was perfect. The photo was taken with a single exposure of 1/15 of a second. Reflection of a Total Solar Eclipse
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7Sometimes the two brightest planets, Jupiter and Venus, are in conjunction. This means that they appear to be close together in the sky.In January 2019 Emma Zulaiha Zulkifli caught the two planets in the pre-dawn eastern sky in Kundasang, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Venus is above Jupiter. [Photo was posted on EarthSky.] Dawn conjunction of Jupiter and Venus
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8In 2019, for the first time ever, a black hole was imaged. The object itself is completely dark since even light can't escape from it. However, the black hole's boundary – the event horizon – casts a shadow, and that's what we see in the photograph.The image was achieved with data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of eight radio telescopes synchronized by atomic clocks. A supercomputer turned their data into an image. [Photo: EHT.] The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Galaxy Messier 87
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9There are millions of stars in Omega Centauri, a stunning globular cluster photographed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).The star cluster is so densely packed with stars – about 10 million in a volume of 150 light years – that their mutual gravity pulls them into a spherical shape. Star clusters usually contain stars that formed at the same time, but there is such a wide spread of ages and composition, Omega Centauri may be the remnant of a dwarf galaxy merging with the Milky Way. Omega Centauri
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10As 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.]
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11Nasa 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
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12Some 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
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13There 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
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14The 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
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15Mid-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
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16Juno 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.]
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17A 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
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Parakeet
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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
Last edited by Lestie4containergardens; 12/17/19 02:40 PM.
Lestie Mulholland
Container Gardening Editor
Contain your Delight - it's easy!
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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.
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18Few exoplanets have been imaged, and the images are very basic. However, artists can use the available data to make pictures to give us ideas about what the planets might be like. Adam Makarenko takes it a step further and creates models. [Image: Adam Makarenko]Gliese 876 was the first red dwarf found to have a planet, and its planet Gliese 876b was also the first exoplanet discovered by the Keck Observatory. Gliese 876b is one of the models from the Keck Observatory's Exoplanet Imaginarium. Model of Exoplanet Gliese 876b
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19A collaborative painting from Aboriginal Yamaji Artists from Western Australia [left} and a collaborative quilt from South African indigenous artists [right] exhibited at the Shared Sky exhibition. [Left: © 2014 Yamaji Art Centre. Right: © 2014 Bethesda Foundation.]The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is the world's largest telescope array. It's located on two sites, one in Australia and the other in South Africa. Shared Sky grew out a vision to bring together Aboriginal Australian and South African artists in a collaborative exhibition. Indigenous Art and the Square Kilometre Array
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20Zinnia's grown on the International Space Station (ISS) were the first flowers grown in space. [Image credit: NASA]In November 2015 on the ISS Kjell Lindgren activated the Veggie system containing zinnia seeds. But the astronauts didn't just rely on the hardware, and the activity wasn't just about plant responses to microgravity. If astronauts are to undertake deep space missions, they need to learn how to be gardeners. The photo was taken in January 2016. First Flowers Grown in Space
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Chimpanzee
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Very nice. Wish mine would look that good on Earth.
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21Here is the place where time begins, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, England. The Prime Meridian (0° longitude) goes through Greenwich.The observatory was founded in 1675 by King Charles II. In 1884 the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC voted to adopt the Greenwich meridian as the international Prime Meridian. The Royal Observatory Greenwich in the snow
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22This series of five photos shows the path of the low December sun at Lulworth Cove on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, England just before the December solstice in 2015. Chris Kotsiopoulos braved “rough and slippery terrain, cows blocking the narrow footpath and three intense rain storms” to record these Sun positions. In 2019 the December solstice occurred at 04.19 UTC on the 22nd. (UTC = Greenwich Mean Time) This was when the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Capricorn. The Sun's path near the winter solstice
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Chimpanzee
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What a beautiful scene. Time lapse is amazing.
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23There is a sky phenomenon that looks like an aurora, but isn't one. Skywatchers named it “Steve” meaning something unknown. Aurora-watchers have been seeing Steve for centuries, but it's only recently been studied. It's even got a backronym: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. It's a very narrow purple arc extending for hundreds or thousands of miles, aligned east–west. Although Steve is accompanied by aurorae, the phenomenon itself is not, as is an aurora, caused y charged particles from the Sun interacting with Earth's atmosphere. Steve's mysterious purple arc
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24The green comet – 46P Wirtanen – made a close approach to Earth in December 2018. It was nicknamed “the Christmas Comet”.Tommy Eliassen photographed the comet in a starry sky above a magnificent pine tree covered in snow in Bleikvassli, Norway. The image was shortlisted for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019. The Christmas Comet
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25![[Linked Image]](https://previews.123rf.com/images/ngaga35/ngaga351712/ngaga35171200144/91022861-merry-christmas-in-different-languages-in-the-shape-of-christmas-three-celebration-word-tag-cloud-gr.jpg)
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