Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Summer Triangles over Japan

NASA ^ | May 06, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Summer Triangle? The bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair form a large triangle on the sky that can be seen rising in the early northern early spring during the morning and rising in the northern fall during the evening. During summer months, the triangle can be found nearly overhead near midnight. Featured here, the Summer Triangle asterism was captured last month from Gunma, Japan. In the foreground, sporting a triangular shape of its own, is a flowering 500 year old cherry tree, standing about 15 meters tall. The triangular shape of the asterism is only evident from the direction of Earth -- in actuality the stars are thousands of light years apart in space.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit and Copyright: Shingo Takei (TWAN)]

[SunkenCiv]

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[cripplecreek]

I think Kung Fu Panda

[Celtic Conservative]

Beautiful!

Domo gozaimashita!

CC

[notdownwidems]

I don’t see no triangle

[eclecticEel]

Any three stars chosen at random will form a triangle.

[Nifster]

or a plane ;)

(mathematics reference for those who don’t get it)

[W.]

⁂

Also, cool pic!

[Verginius Rufus]

Thanks to the wobble in the earth's axis, at times the north celestial pole is near Vega. In those periods the trio of Vega, Deneb and Altair are visible from northern latitudes all year long.

Vega, Deneb and Altair are Latinized versions of Arabic names. Deneb is dhanab aldajajah, "the tail of the hen."

They were better astronomers than ornithologists--most people can tell a chicken apart from a swan.

[C19fan]

How does one take a photo like that. Since the stars are in fixed position relative to the tree it could not be a long exposure.

[Moltke]

It takes three points to define a plane; an infinite number of points to form a plane.

/pedant

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks VR.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

SOOOOOO beautiful

[Nifster]

well and to be precise three pints do not ‘form’ a triangle since one does need to ‘connect the dots’

I was being lose with my humor since we aren’t in class doing ‘rigorous’ work. But your point is well taken and I do stand corrected

[Moltke]

For completeness, it must be added that the three points must not be collinear to define the plane.

;-)

[BlueDragon]

woops, wrong thread.

wrong plane

[Nifster]

And that too

[Nifster]

Nicely played