Astronomy Picture of the Day

NASA ^ | 1/28/10 | Noel Carboni, Greg Parker

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Kemble's Cascade
Credit & Copyright: Processing - Noel Carboni, Imaging - Greg Parker, New Forest Observatory

Explanation: An asterism is just a recognized pattern of stars that is not one the 88 official constellations. For example, one of the most famous (and largest) asterisms is the Big Dipper within the constellation Ursa Major. But this pretty chain of stars, visible with binoculars towards the long-necked constellation of Camelopardalis, is also a recognized asterism. Known as Kemble's Cascade, it contains about 20 stars nearly in a row, stretching over five times the width of a full moon. Tumbling from the upper right to lower left in the picture, Kemble's Cascade was made popular by astronomy enthusiast Lucian Kemble. The bright object at the lower left is the relatively compact open cluster of stars, NGC 1502.

[sig226]

The human brain sees patterns, often when none are actually there. I've often wondered if this could be studied.

[nnn0jeh]

looks like a grant option to me. go for it. need any help?

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[sig226]

Would you be willing to hold my barf bag while I proposed the grant and the university asked me how the study would help lesbian AIDS adoptees with more than 11 children and fight climate change? :)

[RebelTex]

Already done and it resulted in what is now called ‘the Rorschach test’.

From:
http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/medmuseum/galleryexhibits/diagnostik/rorschach.html

“The Rorschach test is based on the human tendency to project interpretations and feelings onto ambiguous stimuli. Rorschach held that a person’s perceptual responses to inkblots could serve as clues to basic personality tendencies.”