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Astronomy Picture of the Day
NASA ^ | 5/16/08 | Jean-Marc Lecleire

Posted on 05/16/2008 2:04:56 PM PDT by sig226


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Circles in the Sky

Credit & Copyright:

Jean-Marc Lecleire

Explanation:

Gazing skyward on a sunny day in May, photographer Jean-Marc Lecleire captured this engaging display of ice halos forming complete circles in the sky.

Recorded with a fish-eye lens from a spot near the grand Château de Chambord in France, the picture looks straight up, spanning almost 180 degrees from horizon to horizon.

Surrounding the Sun is a halo formed by sunlight refracting through hexagonal-shaped ice crystals in high, thin clouds.

The halo is circular and exactly 22 degrees in radius, but it looks squashed because of the distortion of the extremely wide-angle lens.

Surrounding the zenith (the point directly above the observer) and always at the same altitude as the Sun is a lovely parhelic circle, caused by sunlight reflecting from ice crystals with nearly vertical faces.

On average more common than rainbows, beautiful ice halos can often be seen in planet Earth's sky by those who know how to look for them.



TOPICS: Astronomy Picture of the Day
KEYWORDS: apod

1 posted on 05/16/2008 2:13:08 PM PDT by sig226
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To: fnord; Number57; KevinDavis; rdb3; MNJohnnie; thoughtomator; RightWhale; proudofthesouth; ...

2 posted on 05/16/2008 2:14:18 PM PDT by sig226 (Real power is not the ability to destroy an enemy. It is the willingness to do it.)
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To: sig226

Wow that’s cool

Is that a fish eye lens?


3 posted on 05/16/2008 2:18:32 PM PDT by wastedyears (Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. - Optimus Prime)
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To: sig226

I love these astronomy photos - keep ‘em coming.


4 posted on 05/16/2008 2:37:35 PM PDT by dainbramaged (the Tree of Liberty needs watering)
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To: sig226

This is only part of the full display. Once in a while we get a full sky display but it is highly dependent on exact sky conditions. The full display has several false suns and a parabolic arc coming off the circle closing to a white sun opposite the real sun among other features.


5 posted on 05/16/2008 2:39:11 PM PDT by RightWhale (You are reading this now)
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To: sig226

Excellent!


6 posted on 05/16/2008 2:43:27 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: sig226
Finally, the Global Warming culprit has been identified.

Now all we have to do is find where Karl Rove hid the dimmer switch.

When St Thomas traveled to India to spread the Gospel of Jesus he found a society that worshiped the Sun. Every 7 days they would enter the water and pray to their God. They would throw water into the air and ask their god to bless this water and when it fell back upon them they believed that they had been blessed by their God.

Thomas had preached the wonder of Baptism but the peope were not impressed, until one day Thomas entered the water and called upon the Lord to show them the Rite of Baptism. The water rose from his hand and when it reached its zenith it stopped above his head and did not fall. He explained that the Baptism of the Christians was all powerful. Those who witnessed this miracle were converted and to this day this state on the Southwest Coast of India is Christian in a country that is otherwise Hindu!

This picture is a powerful force! Amen!

7 posted on 05/16/2008 3:45:32 PM PDT by Young Werther (Julius Caesar (Quae Cum Ita Sunt. Since these things are so.))
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To: sig226

Lovely.


8 posted on 05/16/2008 9:32:49 PM PDT by Ciexyz
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To: sig226
Great image!!

It appears as an upside down diamond ring.

I took this one about 2 weeks ago. M51 Galaxy, at about 37 million light years away. There is some dispute as to how distant this Galaxy actually is. This is the most distant object I have imaged with some success. It's a set of 15 exposures at 50 seconds each, processed and stacked into one image.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

9 posted on 05/16/2008 10:19:35 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: dragnet2

Nice. It makes you appreciate the quality of the toys NASA gets to play with. :)


10 posted on 05/17/2008 4:51:55 AM PDT by sig226 (Real power is not the ability to destroy an enemy. It is the willingness to do it.)
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To: sig226
I do appreciate it, as it is my and your money after all.

That being said, the advances of high end digital imaging cameras, even when the imaging train is coupled with smaller instruments, it has been nothing short of unimaginable leaps in digital astronomical imaging and processing resulting in very high resolution imagery.

Valuable research and many discoveries are now being made and conducted at the amateur or private level if you will.

11 posted on 05/17/2008 10:10:52 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: sig226

In addition, what it really makes me be appreciative is one can now obtain a digital image of an object approximately 37 million light years away, with a 50 second exposure under moderately light polluted conditions, in a way that dramatically reduces extended tracking issues due to the short exposures lengths. Compounded by the fact that today’s software can process these images in a way that was never imagined just 15 short years ago.


12 posted on 05/17/2008 10:26:44 PM PDT by dragnet2
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