Astronomy Picture of the Day

Brian and I used to go to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site to see what cool pics were featured that day. Some pics are boring, but some are downright amazing. We'd put our favorites as backgrounds on our computer desktop (but these days our backgrounds are pics of our nephew and baby nieces).

Anyway, I went back to the site and trolled around because I thought it would be fun to post a few of the better ones on the blog. Some of these are like art. They're so amazing....

Star Forming Region NGC 3582

Fox Fur Nebula

M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds in Orion

Crab Nebula from Hubble

(This is what's left from an exploded star!)

"Above the Clouds"

With each picture, APOD gives an explanation. Here's what they say about "Above the Clouds":

"From the windswept peak of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawaii, your view of the world at night could look like this. At an altitude of about 13,500 feet, the mountain top is silhouetted in the stunning skyscape recorded near dusk in early December of 2005. The volcanic peak rises just above a sea of storm clouds illuminated by a bright Moon. Planet Venus is setting near the Moon as the brilliant evening star. The scene also includes the faint, milky band of our own galaxy's disk of stars and cosmic dust clouds stretching from the horizon into the sky along the right edge of the frame."

Like I needed another reason to want to go to Hawaii...

But we have it pretty good here too. I was surprised to see this:

A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff

"This sky is protected. Yesterday [April 16, 2008] marked the 50 year anniversary of the first lighting ordinance ever enacted, which restricted searchlight advertisements from sweeping the night skies above Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Flagstaff now enjoys the status of being the first International Dark Sky City, and maintains a lighting code that limits lights from polluting this majestic nighttime view. The current dark skies over Flagstaff not only enable local astronomers to decode the universe but allow local sky enthusiasts to see and enjoy a tapestry contemplated previously by every human generation. The above image, pointing just east of north, was taken two weeks ago at 3 am from Fort Valley, only 10 kilometers from central Flagstaff. Visible in the above spectacular panorama are the San Francisco Peaks caped by a lenticular cloud. Far in the distance, the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, highlighted by the constellations of Cassiopeia, Cepheas, and Cygnus. On the far right, the North America Nebula is visible just under the very bright star Deneb."

Coolness.