Astronomy Picture of the Day Search Results for "Seip"

APOD: 2008 May 31 - A View to the Sunset
Explanation: Each day on planet Earth can have a dramatic ending as the Sun sets below the colorful western horizon. Often inspiring, or offering a moment for contemplation, a sunset is perhaps the single most photographed celestial event. Did you recognize this as a picture of one? The image actually is a single exposure of the setting Sun recorded near Wasserberg, Germany on May 11. To create the uncommon sunset view the photographer used a digital camera and a zoom lens (a lens with an adjustable focal length). During the 1/6 second long exposure he smoothly changed the focal length while simultaneously rotating the camera, altering the image scale and orientation. The result transforms an objective depiction of nature into an artistic abstraction.

APOD: 2008 February 20 - Moon Slide Slim
Explanation: No special filters - or even a telescope - are required to enjoy a leisurely lunar eclipse. In fact, watched from all over the night side of planet Earth, these regular celestial performances have entertained many casual skygazers. Still, this eye-catching picture of a lunar eclipse may look unfamiliar. To make it, astroimager Stefan Seip set his camera on a tripod and locked the shutter open during the total lunar eclipse of March 3, 2007. The resulting image records the trail of the Moon (and narrower trails of stars) sliding through the night. Reddish hues common during the total phase of a lunar eclipse, are evident along the darker, slimmer portion of the Moon trail. At least part of tonight's lunar eclipse will be visible in clear skies over the Americas, Europe, Africa and western Asia. The eclipse lasts over three hours from start to finish, with about 50 minutes of totality. Tonight's eclipse is the last total lunar eclipse until December of 2010.

APOD: 2008 February 16 - Large Binocular Telescope
Explanation: With moonlight on the horizon, a starry sky and the northern Milky Way provide the background for this dramatic view of the World at Night. The imposing structure in the foreground houses the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), on Mount Graham, Arizona. Inside, the two 8.4 meter diameter mirrors of the LBT really are side-by-side on a common mount, an arrangement mimicking the design of more modest optical equipment usually carried around the neck. While not exactly portable, the benefits of the large scale binocular configuration adopted include an increase in sensitivity over a single mirror telescope and high resolution imaging for faint objects over a relatively wide field of view. An international collaboration operates the LBT Observatory.

APOD: 2007 September 26 - Saguaro Moon
Explanation: A Full Moon rising can be a dramatic celestial sight, and Full Moons can have many names. For example, tonight's Full Moon, the one nearest the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, is popularly called the Harvest Moon. According to lore the name is a fitting one because farmers could work late into the night at the end of the growing season harvesting crops by moonlight. In the same traditions, the Full Moon following the Harvest Moon is the Hunter's Moon. But, recorded on a trip to the American southwest, this contribution to compelling images of moonrise is appropriately titled Saguaro Moon.

APOD: 2007 June 23 - 3D Barringer Meteorite Crater
Explanation: Barringer Meteorite Crater, near Winslow, Arizona, is one of the best known impact craters on planet Earth. View this color stereo anaglyph with red/blue glasses to get a dramatic sense of the crater's dimensions -- one mile wide, and up to 570 feet deep. (A cross-eyed stereo pair is available here.) Historically, this crater is the first recognized to be caused by an impact rather than a volcanic eruption. Modern research indicates that the impactor responsible, a 300,000 ton nickel-iron meteor, struck some 50,000 years ago. Estimates suggest that it was about 130 feet across and was traveling over 26,000 miles per hour. For comparison, the asteroid or comet impactor that created the Chicxulub crater 65 million years ago, and is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, was 6 to 12 miles across.

APOD: 2007 February 21 - Mira Over Germany
Explanation: What's that new star in the sky? The star might appear new, but it's actually just the variable star Mira near its brightest. Rolling your cursor over the above vertically compressed image will identify the unusual star Mira, a star that can change from practical invisibility to one of the brighter stars on the sky over the course of a year. Pictured above a castle in Stuttgart, Germany, last week, red giant star Mira appeared near its maximum brightness of magnitude 2. Although similar in mass to our Sun, Mira tenuous and cool atmosphere could extend out past the orbit of Mars, and achieve a luminosity over 10,000 times greater than our Sun. Mira is near the end of its life and its variability is somewhat erratic. Details of Mira's variability are still being researched, but the reason for Mira's pulsations are thought related to periodic changes in the thickness of parts of Mira's atmosphere. Recent high resolution images show that Mira is not even round. Mira lies 420 light years distant toward the constellation of the Monster Whale (Cetus). Mira will fade over the next 200 days, but climb back to naked-eye visibility early next year.

APOD: 2007 January 19 - McNaught's Matinee
Explanation: Comets grow bright when they're close to the Sun, basking in the intense solar radiation. Of course, they're also usually impossible to see against the overwhelming scattered sunlight. But surprising Comet McNaught - whose January 12 closest approach to the Sun (perihelion passage) was well inside the orbit of Mercury - gave an enjoyable performance in bright blue daytime skies. In fact, comet expert David Levy captured this remarkable inset (upper left) telescopic view of McNaught within an hour of perihelion, with the comet in broad daylight only about 7 degrees away from the Sun's position. Stefan Seip's wider daytime view of the comet and fluffy clouds was recorded approximately a day later. Seip used a polarizing filter and a telescope/camera set up near Stuttgart, Germany. No longer visible in broad daylight, Comet McNaught is now touring twilight southern skies.

APOD: 2006 November 2 - Messier 76
Explanation: "Nebula at the right foot of Andromeda ... " begins the description for the 76th object in Charles Messier's 18th century Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters. In fact, M76 is one of the fainter objects on the Messier list and is also known by the popular name of the "Little Dumbbell Nebula". Like its brighter namesake M27 (the Dumbbell Nebula), M76 is recognized as a planetary nebula - a gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star. The nebula itself is thought to be shaped more like a donut, while its box-like appearance is due to our nearly edge-on view. Gas expanding more rapidly away from the donut hole produces the faint loops of far flung material. The nebula's dying star can be picked out in this sharp color image as the bottom, blue-tinted member of the double star near the center of the box-like shape. Distance estimates place M76 about 3 to 5 thousand light-years away, making the nebula over a light-year in diameter.

APOD: 2006 September 29- NGC 5905 and 5908
Explanation: These two beautiful galaxies, NGC 5905 (left) and NGC 5908 lie about 140 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Draco. Separated by about 500,000 light-years, the pair are actually both spiral galaxies and nicely illustrate the striking contrasts in appearance possible when viewing spirals from different perspectives. Seen face-on, NGC 5905 is clearly a spiral galaxy with bright star clusters tracing arms that wind outward from a prominent central bar. Oriented edge-on to our view, the spiral nature of NGC 5908 is revealed by a bright nucleus and dark band of obscuring dust characteristic of a spiral galaxy's disk. In fact, NGC 5908 is similar in appearance to the well studied edge-on spiral galaxy M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy.

APOD: 2006 August 5 - Still Life with NGC 2170
Explanation: In this beautiful celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines at the upper left. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae and a compact red emission region against a backdrop of stars. Like the common household items still life painters often choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars pictured here are also commonly found in this setting - a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation Monoceros. The giant molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be about 15 light-years across.

APOD: 2006 May 11 - Comet Meets Ring Nebula: Part I
Explanation: As dawn approached on May 8, astronomer Stefan Seip carefully watched Fragment C of broken comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 approach M57 - the Ring Nebula, and faint spiral galaxy IC 1296. Of course, even though the trio seemed to come close together in a truly cosmic photo opportunity, the comet is in the inner part of our solar system, a mere 0.5 light-minutes or so from Seip's telescope located near Stuttgart, Germany, planet Earth. The Ring Nebula (upper right) is more like 2,000 light-years distant, well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. At a distance of 200 million light-years, IC 1296 (between comet and ring) is beyond even the Milky Way's boundaries. Because the comet is so close, it appears to move relatively rapidly against the distant stars. This dramatic telescopic view was composited from two sets of images; one compensating for the comet's apparent motion and one recording the background stars and nebulae.

APOD: 2006 April 4 - A Total Solar Eclipse over Turkey
Explanation: Some views of last week's total eclipse of the Sun were better than others. One spectacular view occurred over Adrasan (near Antalya), Turkey and was captured there by industrious astrophotographer Stefan Seip. The above digital mosaic caught the Moon in several stages as it moved between the Earth and the Sun. During the center frame, a total solar eclipse was visible, the Moon completely blocked the Sun, the area became dark, and the magnificent corona of the Sun became visible. The foreground frame from the same location was taken during sunlight. The next total eclipse of the Sun will occur in August 2008 and be visible from parts of North America, Europe, and Asia.

APOD: 2005 October 5 - An Annular Solar Eclipse at High Resolution
Explanation: On Monday, part of the Sun went missing. The missing piece was no cause for concern -- the Moon was only momentarily in the way. The event was not a total eclipse of the Sun for any Earth-bound sky enthusiast but rather, at best, an annular eclipse, where the Moon blocked most of the Sun. Because of the relatively large distance to the Moon during this Earth-Moon-Sun alignment, the Moon did not have a large enough angular size to block the entire Sun. Those who witnessed the solar eclipse from a narrow path through Portugal, Spain and Africa, however, were lucky enough to see the coveted Ring of Fire, a dark Moon completely surrounded by the brilliant light of the distant Sun. Pictured above is a Ring of Fire captured two days ago in unusually high resolution above Spain. The resulting image shows details of the granular solar surface as well as many prominences around the Sun.

APOD: 2005 September 22 - Orange Moon, Red Flash
Explanation: This remarkable telescopic image highlights the deep orange cast of a waning gibbous Moon seen very close to the eastern horizon earlier this week, on September 19. In fact, today's equinox at 22:23 UT marks the beginning of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere and makes this view from Stuttgart, Germany an almost Autumn Moon. While the long sight-line through the atmosphere filters and reddens the moonlight, it also bends different colors of light through slightly different angles, producing noticeable red (bottom) and green (top) lunar rims. Also captured here floating just below the Moon is a thin, red mirage (inset) -- in this case, an atmospherically magnified and distorted image of the red rim. Of course, this tantalizing lunar "red flash" is related to the more commonly seen green flash of the Sun.

APOD: 2005 August 15 - Perseid Meteors and the Milky Way
Explanation: Where will the next Perseid meteor appear? Sky enthusiasts who trekked outside for the Perseid meteor shower that peaked over the past few days typically had this question on their mind. The above movie, where the time-line has been digitally altered, captures part of that very mystery. Eight meteors from the night of August 12 and the morning of August 13 have been identified in the movie so far, seven of which are Perseids. Can you identify the non-Perseid meteor? Since all Perseid meteors appear to come from the constellation of Perseus, the non-Perseid meteor is the one that streaks in a different direction. Early reports are that this year's Perseids were unfortunately a bit disappointing. The above digital mosaic was taken from Alsace, France, with the photogenic band of our Milky Way Galaxy far in the background.

APOD: 2005 May 13 - When the Moon Was Young
Explanation: Remember when the Moon was young? It was just last Monday. On May 9th, this slender crescent Moon was recorded at a tender age of 34 hours and 18 minutes. Well, OK ... when calculating the lunar age during a lunation or complete cycle of phases - from New Moon to Full Moon and back to New Moon again - the Moon never gets more than around 29.5 days old. Still, a young Moon can be a rewarding sight, even for casual skygazers, though the slim crescent is relatively faint and only easy to see low in the west as the sky grows dark after sunset. Sighting this young Moon last Monday, lucky astronomer Stefan Seip was also treated to a very dramatic telescopic view of an airliner flying in front of the distant sunlit crescent. At a high altitude, the jet's stunning contrails reflect the strongly reddened light of the Sun setting below the western horizon.

APOD: 2005 March 3 - Still Life with NGC 2170
Explanation: In this beautiful celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines at the upper left. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae and a compact red emission region against a backdrop of stars. Like the common household items still life painters often choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars pictured here are also commonly found in this setting - a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation Monoceros. The giant molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be about 15 light-years across.

APOD: 2005 January 11 - Machholz Meets the Pleiades
Explanation: Sweeping northward in planet Earth's sky, comet Machholz extended its long ion tail with the Pleiades star cluster in the background on January 7th. This stunning view, recorded with a telephoto lens in skies over Oberjoch, Bavaria, Germany, emphasizes faint, complex tail structures and the scene's lovely blue and green colors. Merging with the blue dust-reflected starlight of the Pleiades, colors in the comet's ion tail and greenish coma are produced as gas molecules fluoresce in sunlight. Reflecting the sunlight, dust from comet Machholz trails along the comet's orbit and forms the whitish tail jutting down and toward the right. While the visible coma spans about 500,000 kilometers, the nucleus of the comet, likely only a few kilometers across, lies hidden within. Comet tails can extend many millions of kilometers from the nucleus, but appear substantially shortened because of perspective.

APOD: 2004 September 27 - The Great Nebula in Orion
Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, digitally sharpened images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium - four of the brightest stars in the nebula. Many of the filamentary structures visible are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

APOD: 2004 August 25 - Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn
Explanation: An unusual triangle of light will be particularly bright near the eastern horizon before sunrise during the next two months for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere. Once considered a false dawn, this triangle of light is actually Zodiacal Light, light reflected from interplanetary dust particles. The triangle is clearly visible in the left frame taken in Namibia in May. Rolling the cursor over the image will bring up labels. Bright zodiacal light can be seen nearly every clear moonless morning over the next few months on images taken by the Mauna Kea, Hawaii fisheye CONCAM of the Night Sky Live project. Zodiacal dust orbits the Sun predominantly in the same plane as the planets: the ecliptic. Zodiacal light is so bright this time of year because the dust band is oriented nearly vertical at sunrise, so that the thick air near the horizon does not block out relatively bright reflecting dust. Zodiacal light is also bright for people in Earth's northern hemisphere in March and April just after sunset.

APOD: 2004 July 8 - Southern Cross Star Colors
Explanation: Fix your camera to a tripod, lock the shutter open, and you can easily record an image of star trails, the graceful concentric arcs traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis. Gradually change the focus of the camera lens during the exposure, and you could end up with a dramatic picture like this one where the out-of-focus portion of the trail shows off the star's color. In this case, the subject is one of the most famous constellations in the night sky, Crux, the Southern Cross. Gacrux or gamma Crucis is the bright red giant star only 88 light-years distant that forms the top of the Cross seen here near top center. Acrux, the hot blue star at the bottom of the Cross is about 320 light-years distant. Actually a binary star system, Acrux is the alpha star of the compact Southern Cross and lies along a line pointing from Gacrux to the South Celestial Pole, off the lower right edge of the picture. Adding a separate short exposure to the end of the step-focussed trails to better show the positions of the stars themselves, astronomer Stefan Seip recorded this remarkable image last May in the dark night skies above Namibia.

APOD: 2004 June 11 - Venus and the Chromosphere
Explanation: Enjoying the 2004 Transit of Venus from Stuttgart, Germany, astronomer Stefan Seip recorded this fascinating, detailed image of the Sun. Revealing a network of cells and dark filaments against a bright solar disk with spicules and prominences along the Sun's limb, his telescopic picture was taken through an H-alpha filter. The filter narrowly transmits only the red light from hydrogen atoms and emphasizes the solar chromosphere -- the region of the Sun's atmosphere immediately above its photosphere or normally visible surface. Here, the dark disk of Venus seems to be imitating a giant sunspot that looks perhaps a little too round. But in H-alpha pictures like this one, sunspot regions are usually dominated by bright splotches (called plages) on the solar chromosphere.

APOD: 2003 July 7 - At the Edge of the Sun
Explanation: Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun's magnetic field. The Earth would easily fit below the prominence on the left. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the Solar System. Although very hot, prominences typically appear dark when viewed against the Sun, since they are slightly cooler than the surface. The above image in false color was taken on June 1 from Stuttgart, Germany with an amateur telescope and camera.