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Oregon Coast
image
Created for the OAE
Caption: Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns:.
This image features the Milky Way, our home galaxy, over Oregon, USA, as seen in July 2021. It is obviously a composite because the stars are not reflected in the water. Still, it is nicely composed to suggest a similarity between the stream of water on Earth and the (mirrored) stream of stars in the sky.
The Milky Way clearly dominates the sky in this image. As a prominent feature in the sky, the Milky Way has been associated with the religions and mythologies of many cultures. The best-known association from Greek folklore “explains” it as a stream of divine milk from the mighty mother goddess Hera, whose husband god Zeus frequently misbehaved (as he did in this case, causing this accident). Greek mythology, on the other hand, considered it to be the path of the souls, while ancient Greek science suggested several scientific explanations, all of which turned out to be false.
The Ojibwe in North America, who live to the east of Oregon where this photograph was taken, also consider the Milky Way a Path for Spirits and a River of Souls. Looking at the foreground of the picture, this belief is even more understandable; it looks as if the rivers of Earth and heaven merge at the horizon.
The prominent feature in the middle of the image is the dark region called the Pipe Nebula in the Milky Way. The smoke of this pipe goes to the right and ends almost at a treetop, where we find the orange star Antares in the heart of the Scorpion.
In the middle of the image, below the Pipe, there is a huge dark area in the Milky Way with two prominent red spots. These spots are hydrogen clouds called the Cat’s Paw and the Lagoon, but in this image they look like the red eyes of great Manitou, the Great Spirit of the Iroquois Native Americans. The constellation of Sagittarius in this area is not recognisable because the image of the Milky Way is highly processed in order to display these dark features that are invisible to the naked eye.
Credit: Marcin Zajac/IAU OAE
Glossary Terms:
Dust , Milky Way , Dust Cloud , Interstellar Extinction
Categories:
Milky Way and Interstellar Medium
, Naked Eye Astronomy
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
This file on Zenodo ( image 16.36 MB)
Close-up view of a sunspot
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Caption: This image of a sunspot was taken by the Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation. It was taken only in light with a wavelength of 530 nanometers, within the greenish-yellow part of the visible spectrum.
The picture reveals the detail of the spot's structure and the Sun’s photosphere. The dark central region, known as the umbra, is surrounded by a lighter area called the penumbra with radially elongated features stretching towards the umbra. Note that the umbra and penumbra here are not the same as the umbra and penumbra that occur during an eclipse.
The sunspot measures approximately 5000 kilometres in diameter, roughly equivalent to the east-west span of China. While the umbra appears black, it is actually hot and bright. It only appears dark because it is a few thousand kelvin cooler than the surrounding solar photosphere. Surrounding the sunspot, granulation patterns of plasma are visible on the photospheric surface of the Sun.
Credit: NSO/NSF/AURA
Credit Link
Glossary Terms:
Photosphere , Sun , Sunspot , Granulation
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
File
( image
5.23 MB)
Comet Hale-Bopp
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Caption: Image of comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp), taken on 4 April 1997, with an exposure time of 10 minutes. The field shown is about 6.5°x6.5°. Two tails extend from the bright coma: one white-yellowish dust tail and a bluish gas tail, always pointing away from the Sun.
Credit: E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria
Credit Link
Glossary Terms:
Comet , Cometary Tail
Categories:
Solar System
License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported icons
File
( image
882.93 kB)
A Geocentric chart from 1568
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Caption: This map, created in 1568 by the Portuguese cartographer Bartolomeu Velho, depicts the worldview of the time, when many scholars believed in a geocentric model of the cosmos — the idea that Earth sits at the centre of the Universe with the Sun, Moon, the five planets known at the time, and stars moving around it. The design and layout of this map were influenced by astronomical understanding rooted in geocentric thinking.
The geocentric model was widely accepted for many centuries, especially in Europe, based on interpretations of celestial motions and philosophical traditions that placed Earth at the centre. It was only later, with observations by astronomers such as, Galileo Galilei, that this model was replaced by the heliocentric model, which places the Sun at the centre of the Solar System.
Credit: Bartolomeu Velho
Credit Link
Glossary Terms:
Geocentric Model , Scientific Model
License: Public Domain Public Domain icons
File
( image
12.99 MB)
Milky Way Over Quiver Tree
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Created for the OAE
Caption: Winner in the 2023 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category of Still images taken exclusively with smartphones/mobile devices.
This breathtaking photograph was captured on 17 June 2023, near Keetmanshoop, Namibia, with a smartphone. Dominating the night sky, the majestic arc of the Milky Way creates a celestial bridge across the heavens. The image captures a range of notable astronomical objects: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, seen towards the bottom of the image and appearing as fuzzy clouds; Antares, seen towards the top left of the image; and the coalsack nebula (referred to by various names by Indigenous cultures around the world), seen vertically above the Large Magellanic Cloud. Silhouetted against this astral backdrop, the trees — which are actually succulent aloe plants native to southern Africa — add a touch of Earth's unique beauty. Historically, these plants were known as ‘quiver trees’ because groups of local Indigenous people would use their hollowed branches to hold darts. The serene Namibian landscape, combined with the brilliance of the southern hemisphere's stars, offers a glimpse into the majesty of our Universe.
Credit: Jianfeng Dai/IAU OAE (CC BY 4.0)
Glossary Terms:
Milky Way , Sky , Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) , Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
Categories:
Milky Way and Interstellar Medium
, Naked Eye Astronomy
Tags:
astrophotography
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
This file on Zenodo ( image 22.04 MB)
