Topic: Facinating Pictures and the art of nature

[BeSeeingYou]

A commercial fisherman took these photos off the coast of Norway recently.  Moby Dick indeed.

[BobbyR]

[Markcb750]

Great photo!

[BeSeeingYou]

Great photo!

   An occultation and a transit at nearly the same time.  I am thinking that it is Jupiter and three of it's moons in the lower right of the photo.  The darkened limb of the moon is about to occult (an apparently larger body passes in front of an apparently smaller body) Jupiter just as a jet transits (smaller body passes in front of a larger body) the moon.  The moon occulting a planet happens fairly frequently but it is viewable only in a very narrow band so you don't get many chances to see it happen.  I have seen jet transits twice through my scope, once like this across the moon and the other time recently during the Venus transit when a jet transited the sun along with Venus.  It happens so fast and without warning I was not able to get a photo.

[BobbyR]

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

pfffsssst. Tesla used to make those in his sleep.

[BobbyR]

[cosmicvision]

There is a short acoustic song written about Sagan's reflections on this photo, it's called Blue Spotted Tail. Pretty poignant, to consider how small & insignificant we all really are in the grand scheme of things.

Super thread Keep em coming folks!

[Cabilao]

taken while diving in egypt. half and half shot at sunset. took 20 attempts for the final pic.

[BobbyR]

[BeSeeingYou]

There is a short acoustic song written about Sagan's reflections on this photo, it's called Blue Spotted Tail. Pretty poignant, to consider how small & insignificant we all really are in the grand scheme of things.

Super thread Keep em coming folks!

Checking in on JPL's website there is an active odometer of both Voyager spacecraft.  Because the earth moves faster in it's orbit than the spacecraft at this point in our orbit we are getting closer to both Voyagers.  Voyager 1 has recently entered a new outer region of our solar system.  Called the magnetic highway scientists believe it is the last boundary before interstellar space.

[cosmicvision]

Wow. That is bada$$, one can't even begin to fathom just what all lies out there for us to find out about. This is something I ponder often. And to think there are still people that believe we're the only intelligent life form out there!!

[Cabilao]

And to think there are still people that believe we're the only intelligent life form out there!!

maybe the others out there think the same

[TwoTired]

And to think there are still people that believe we're the only intelligent life form out there!!

maybe the others out there think the same

Maybe the other really are.

[Markcb750]

It's Alive.

[Cabilao]

It's Alive.

What the F... is this???

[Markcb750]

It's Alive.

What the F... is this???

From the APOD website

Explanation: Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to be able to go for decades without food or water, to survive temperatures from near absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water, to survive pressures from near zero to well above that on ocean floors, and to survive direct exposure to dangerous radiations. The far-ranging survivability of these extremophiles was tested in 2011 outside an orbiting space shuttle. Tardigrades are so durable partly because they can repair their own DNA and reduce their body water content to a few percent. Some of these miniature water-bears almost became extraterrestrials recently when they were launched toward to the Martian moon Phobos on board the Russian mission Fobos-Grunt, but stayed terrestrial when a rocket failed and the capsule remained in Earth orbit. Tardigrades are more common than humans across most of the Earth. Pictured above in a color-enhanced electron micrograph, a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss.

[Cabilao]

Thanks Mark,thats one weird animal.

[70CB750]

I would rather believe that's a picture from microscope.

[trueblue]

FIRE IN THE SKY OVER WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Colin Legg, of Colin Legg Photography, took this incredible image at 10:14pm on March 17 2013 from Contos Beach, near Margaret River in Western Australia. He managed to capture the Aurora Australis, the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud all in one shot.

Photographers had some warning about the aurora making an appearance. A CME (coronal mass ejection) was headed towards Australia for a collision sometime around March 17. Legg initially set up camp in Hamelin Bay but discovered the southerly clouds obscured the view. He moved to Contos Beach; at one stage he thought the ‘show’ was over, so went back to his truck to sleep. He was awakened by an alert for a KP 6 level aurora and saw multiple aurora curtains moving from east to west across the horizon.

Camera settings: 14mm; f/2.8; ISO 4000; 25 sec.

-TEL

[70CB750]

From the game camera.

[MikeZ]

That is an amazing pic. 

[Duanob]

Wolluf! Wolluf! This pic was taken in the wild not far east of Seattle (not in a zoo). Wolves were extinct in our state for 100 years. This one had been tagged by Fish and Game and was wondering for territory. It was photographed by a snowmobiler. I thought it was cool. Now all the ranchers in the area want to shoot them all again.

[Bob Wessner]

Much the same here in Michigan. More, previously rare or extinct wildlife showing up. Wolves in the upper-lower and upper peninsula, black bear sightings just west of Ann Arbor and my wife and I were fortunate enough to grab a picture of a moose in the U.P. last summer, fortunate in that the State estimates there are only 400 or so in all of the Upper Peninsula.

[strynboen]

yes... im a "x "farmer....and have a lot of dirt and old iron..one day,, the old scrap get a fortume worth..like old honda"s