"This Hubble Space Telescope image of SN 1987A shows the brightening ring of supernova debris. The closest supernova explosion seen in almost 400 years is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. "
via hubblesite.org
Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
"The best space images are the ones that put our humble place in perspective, whether it's an image from the moon or a particularly stunning nebula. This one accomplishes the task brilliantly, giving a glimpse of the arm of our galaxy hovering over the limb of our little planet. Watch a timelapse video below.
This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station, over a 15-minute period Dec. 29. The space station is passing over central Africa, near southeastern Niger, toward the south Indian Ocean and Madagascar.
The Milky Way appears as a haze in the middle of the screen, with a brief appearance by Comet Lovejoy."
by Alan Friedman
"The ISS passing across the face of a daytime Moon. Photographed from his location in upstate New York, Alan captured these images at 10:30 a.m. EST back on September 2, 2007, and slowed down the animation a bit; in real-time the event lasted less than half a second. (Click the image for an even larger version.)
Atmospheric distortion creates the “wobbly” appearance of the Moon.
Alan Friedman is a talented photographer, printer (and avid vintage hat collector) living in Buffalo, NY. His images of the Sun in hydrogen alpha light are second-to-none and have been featured on many astronomy websites. When he’s not taking amazing photos of objects in the sky he creates beautiful hand-silkscreened greeting cards at his company Great Arrow Graphics.
See more of Alan’s astrophotography on his website, Averted Imagination."
Eagle Nebula : a star-forming cluster named NGC6611, known as the “Pillars of Creation.”
This Herschel image of the Eagle Nebula, colour coded to 70 microns for blue and 160 microns for green using the PACS (Photodetector Array Camera) and 250 microns for red using the SPIRE (Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver) shows the self-emission of the intensely cold nebula's gas and dust as never seen before. Each colour shows a different temperature of dust, from around 10 degrees above absolute zero (10K) for the red, up to around 40K for the blue. In the far–infrared, the nebula shows its intricate tendril nature, with vast cavities forming an almost cave-like surrounding to the famous pillars, which take on an ethereal ghostly appearance. The gas and dust provide the material for the star formation that is still under way inside this enigmatic nebula.
Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) Esperance WA (27-12-2012) from Colin Legg on Vimeo.
Colin Legg from Esperance, Australia has been documenting Comet Lovejoy’s holiday gift to the southern hemisphere, and this is his latest — and possibly last — timelapse, as the comet has started to fade. This one covers almost 5 hours of Legg’s Comet Lovejoy views as seen during the early morning hours of December 27, 2011. “I used a tracking device to track in azimuth only to maximize coverage,” Legg said. “If you look closely at the head in the 2nd half you can see it moving against the stars.”
