Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Highest, Tallest, and Closest to the Stars

NASA ^ | February 25, 2016 | (see photo credit)

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Explanation: Fans of planet Earth probably recognize its highest mountain, the Himalayan Mount Everest, on the left in this 3-panel skyscape of The World at Night. Shrouded in cloud Everest's peak is at 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) elevation above sea level. In the middle panel, stars trail above volcanic Mauna Kea forming part of the island of Hawaii. Festooned with astronomical observatories, its summit lies a mere 4,168 meters above sea level. Still, measured from its base starting below the ocean's surface, Mauna Kea is over 10,000 meters tall, making it Earth's tallest mountain from base to summit. At right, beneath the arc of the Milky Way is the Andean mountain Chimborazo in Ecuador. The highest equatorial mountain, the Chimborazo volcano's peak elevation is 6,268 meters above sea level. But rotating planet Earth is a flattened sphere (oblate spheroid) in shape, its equatorial diameter greater than its diameter measured pole to pole. Sitting nearly on top of Earth's greatest equatorial bulge, Chimborazo's peak is the farthest point on the planet's surface from the center, over 2,000 meters farther from the center of the Earth than Everest's peak. That makes Chimborazo's summit the place on Earth's surface closest to the stars.

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[Credit and Copyright: Jeff Dai, O Chul Kwon, Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de America), TWAN]

[SunkenCiv]

I'm not sure this is working right, only The Big One appears to be linked at the APoD page, and right now I've got so many tabs loaded, the picture won't load. BUT, at least I'm a day behind... :')

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The Mauna Kea star trails are cool — the photographer used a “comet” technique in PhotoShop or GIMP to create constantly varying brightness and a “head.”