APOD: Shuttle magic

In keeping with this week’s Launchtastic theme, today’s APOD is a beatiful picture of Space Shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Atlantis is currently under way to rendez-vous with the Hubble Space Telescope to carry out essential repairs to ready the telescope for 5 more years of science operation.

Click to enlarge.

Image credit: Charles Danforth (CASA, U. Colorado)

Hubble brings exotic beauties to the IYA party

Remember when the folks at NASA gave us all the opportunity to vote for a target to observe with the Hubble Space Telescope? [Read more...]

APOD: Some very fluffy-looking clouds

This picture fits into my Venn diagram of “cool weather phenomena” and “the fluffy theme I’ve got going on today”. Stacked lenticular clouds these are called, acoording to APOD, and they occure near mountain tops where moist air is forced to flow upwards instead of spread horizontally. The mountain in question here is Mt Rainier in Washington, USA. More very cool pictures of lenticular clouds here.

Image credit: Tim Thompson

APOD: Strange light effects in Latvia

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is really interesting: a picture taken in Latvia showing some strange light effects in the sky. The source of these weird pillary features is not clear, but the caption mentions something to do with ice crystals that are known to do some exotic looking things with light.

If you have a theory you can discuss it on this discussion board. Check out more pictures here.

Image credit: Aigar Truhin

Red skies in the evening

Today’s APOD is very pretty and fits in with my mood today.

Image credit: Terry Holdsclaw