Astronomy Picture of the Day: February 28th of 2015

Moon-Venus-Mars Skyline
Image Credit & Copyright: Jay Ouellet
Explanation: Taken on February 20, five different exposures made in rapid succession were used to created this tantalizing telephoto image. In combination, they reveal a wide range of brightness visible to the eye on that frigid evening, from the urban glow of the Quebec City skyline to the triple conjunction of Moon, Venus and Mars. Shortly after sunset the young Moon shows off its bright crescent next to brilliant Venus. Fainter Mars is near the top of the frame. Though details in the Moon's sunlit crescent are washed out, features on the dark, shadowed part of the lunar disk are remarkably clear. Still lacking city lights the lunar night is illuminated solely by earthshine, light reflected from the sunlit side of planet Earth.

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National Geographic Photo of the Day: February 28th of 2015

February 28, 2015

Pronking Springbok

Photograph by Charles Jorgensen, National Geographic Your Shot

“I was on vacation in an area of South Africa where springbok are quite common, and I had a goal of capturing this behavior, called pronking,” writes Charles Jorgensen, a member of our Your Shot community. “On a self-drive safari in Mountain Zebra National Park, we found a plateau that attracted many herds of springbok, among other animals. After a few failed attempts at getting the shot, I came across a small herd. They started running, and one of them started to pronk, jumping to amazing heights. I fired away and managed to capture this animal in its acrobatic display.”

Atronomy Picture of the Day: Febraury 27th of 2015

Long Lovejoy and Little Dumbbell
Image Credit & Copyright: Rolando Ligustri (CARA Project, CAST)
Explanation: Buffeted by the solar wind, Comet Lovejoy's crooked ion tail stretches over 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, recorded on February 20. The starry background includes awesome bluish star Phi Persei below, and pretty planetary nebula M76 just above Lovejoy's long tail. Also known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, after its brighter cousin M27 the Dumbbell Nebula, M76 is only a Full Moon's width away from the comet's greenish coma. Still shining in northern hemisphere skies, this Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is outbound from the inner solar system some 10 light-minutes or 190 million kilometers from Earth. But the Little Dumbbell actually lies over 3 thousand light-years away. Now sweeping steadily north toward the constellation Cassiopeia Comet Lovejoy is fading more slowly than predicted and is still a good target for small telescopes.

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National Geographic Photo of the Day: February 27th of 2015

February 27, 2015

The Pinnacle

Photograph by Chris Prescott, National Geographic Your Shot

“We were near the summit of Sgurr Dearg, [also called] the Inaccessible Pinnacle, a famous feature of the Cuillin Ridge on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of 'The Ridge,’” writes Chris Prescott of the Cut Media short film featuring trials cyclist Danny MacAskill.
“MacAskill grew up on Skye and wanted to make a film that showed off the beauty of the island. A traverse of the full Cuillin Ridge is considered one of the classic mountaineering challenges in the U.K. The film was shot over two weeks and meant transporting a lot of filming equipment onto the ridge every day. Fortunately we were very lucky with the weather!
“The shoot on the Inaccessible Pinnacle was one of the key moments of the film and meant a 3 a.m. start in order to get the best light and catch the cloud inversion. This was taken at around 6 a.m. in the middle of summer, and the sun was still low in the sky. I used the shadow of the pinnacle to block the sun and create the halo effect around Danny. It was taken handheld using a 17mm lens and a graduated neutral density filter.”

Astronomy Picture of the Day: February 26th of 2015

Love and War by Moonlight
Image Credit & Copyright: Kevin Bourque
Explanation: Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, and Mars, the war god's namesake, came together by moonlight in this lovely skyview, recorded on February 20 from Charleston, South Carolina, USA, planet Earth. Made in twilight with a digital camera, the three second time exposure also records earthshine illuminating the otherwise dark surface of the young crescent Moon. Of course, the Moon has moved on from this much anticipated triple conjunction. Venus still shines in the west though as the evening star, third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Sun and the Moon itself. Seen here within almost a Moon's width of Venus, much fainter Mars approached even closer on the following evening. But Mars has since been moving slowly away from brilliant Venus, though Mars is still visible too in the western twilight.

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National Geographic Photo of the Day: February 26th of 2015

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February 26, 2015

Winter Lodgings

Photograph by John Warner, National Geographic Your Shot

A solitary beaver pauses at dawn on its way home from a night of chewing off tree branches, newly within reach under the weight of freshly fallen snow. Your Shot member John Warner explains that the beaver, a mate, and two kits appeared late in the fall on Montana’s Lake Elmo and hastily built a lodge before the winter freeze.
Warner’s picture recently appeared in the Your Shot assignment First Light.
This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our storytelling community where members can take part in photo assignments, get expert feedback, be published, and more. Join now »

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Astronomy Picture of the Day: February 25th of 2015

The Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen and Oxygen
Image Credit & Copyright: Arno Rottal (Far-Light-Photography)
Explanation: The Rosette Nebula is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers -- but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2237, is about 50 light-years in diameter. The nebula can be seen firsthand with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

National Geographic Photo of the Day: February 25th of 2015

February 25, 2015

Berlin’s Reichstag

Photograph by Gerd Ludwig, National Geographic

Berlin, the imposing power city at the heart of Europe’s 20th-century tragedy, is learning to live with its troubled inheritance. Here, a central glass dome symbolizes transparency in the 1894 parliament building, the Reichstag, damaged in World War II and restored by British architect Norman Foster in the 1990s.
See more pictures from the March 2015 feature story "Two Cities, Two Europes."

Astronomy Picture of the Day: Febraury 24th of 2015

Unusual Plumes Above Mars
Image Credit & Copyright: W. Jaeschke
Explanation: What is creating unusual plumes on Mars? No one is sure. Noted and confirmed by a global contingent of amateur astronomers on photos of the red planet in March 2012, possibly similar plumes have now been found on archived images as far back as 1997. Since the plumes reach 200 kilometers up, they seem too high to be related to wind-blown surface dust. Since one plume lasted for eleven days, it seemed too long lasting to be related to aurora. Amateur astronomers will surely continue to monitor the terminator and edge regions of Mars for new high plumes, and the armada of satellites orbiting Mars may be called upon to verify and study any newly reported plume that become visible. The featured 35-minute time-lapse animation was taken on 2012 March 20 by the plume's discoverer -- an attorney from Pennsylvania, USA.

National Geographic Photo of the Day: February 24th of 2015

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