Astronomy Picture of the Day - Southern Cross over Chilean Volcano

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 25 Jan, 2021 | Image Credit & Copyright: Tomáš Slovinský

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous four-star icon is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. The featured image was taken last month in Chile and captures the Southern Cross just to the left of erupting Villarrica, one of the most active volcanos in our Solar System. Connecting the reddest Southern Cross star Gacrux through the brightest star Acrux points near the most southern location in the sky: the South Celestial Pole (SCP), around which all southern stars appear to spin as the Earth turns. In modern times, no bright star resides near the SCP, unlike in the north where bright Polaris now appears near the NCP. Extending the Gacrux - Acrux line still further (from about four to about seven times their angular separation) leads near the Small Magellanic Cloud, a bright satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. The Southern Cross asterism dominates the Crux constellation, a deeper array of stars that includes four Cepheid variable stars visible to the unaided eye. Just above the volcano in the image, and looking like a dark plume, is the Coalsack Nebula, while the large red star-forming Carina Nebula is visible on the upper left.

[MtnClimber]

To be added or removed from the Astronomy Picture of the Day ping list please send me a request via "Private Reply" (Mail).

For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then zoom by moving the magnifying glass over an area and then clicking. The side bars will move the zoomed area over the photograph.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌

Hover your cursor over the photo at the link for the Southern Cross to be highlighted.

[rlmorel]

That is beautiful.

[Repeal The 17th]

There is a “what the heck” at “modern times”...

[MtnClimber]

Don’t you have one of those contraptions for when you eat corn on the cob?

[Repeal The 17th]

I’m kind of old school...
Do you go round-and-round or side-to-side?

[NohSpinZone]

Agreed, what a great photo.

[imardmd1]

A stirring view of God's emblem of the toture device upon which His Beloved Son expired to purchase eternal life for His created humanity. I believe it was this constellation that guided the Magoi of Anatolia finally to the residence of the prophesied Messiah. In Jesus time it was still briefly observed on the horizon, looking south toward Bethlehem. Even here in North America, It can still be seen from Brownsville, Texas.

Thank you for this splendid view.

[MtnClimber]

Do you go round-and-round or side-to-side?

I don't know. I never got mine to work.

[bimboeruption]

I can’t make out the cross.

[MtnClimber]

If you go to the link under the original post’s title, and hover your cursor over the picture then the cross will be illuminated.

[libertylover]

I’d always heard it was obvious, but I don’t see an obvious cross and I couldn’t get the highlighter to work. :(

[Jan_Sobieski]

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way

[MtnClimber]

It is three blue stars and one red star just to the left of the top of the volcano

[Right Wing Assault]

“I’d always heard it was obvious, but I don’t see an obvious cross and I couldn’t get the highlighter to work.”

Bad directions.

Go to the top of the page and click on the red APOD.NASA.gov ^

You get another picture.

Move your cursor to the top of the volcano on that new pictures.

[Huaynero]

“I’d always heard it was obvious, but I don’t see an obvious cross”

Never heard one way or the about “obvious”. In February 1967, in the Mekong Delta I looked up one night and saw the Southern Cross plain as day. It might as well have been in neon lights.

[Zathras]

The first time you see the stars from the Southern Hemisphere, its almost like you are on a different planet.
I was on the Abel Tasman tramp in New Zealand.
Very cool!

[Zathras]

Its actually easier to see than in the photo.

[libertylover]

Thanks for your service.

I went sailing 3 times in Maine on a Schooner (Lewis R. French - oldest boat in the fleet). It’s a great getaway, BTW.

Anyway, there was an guy who’s brother had died and so he said he was spending his own retirement money and his brother’s. He went sailing every year. He also told me that he went sailing in the southern hemisphere, on a tramp freighter. He’s the one who told me that no one had to point out the sourthern cross; he said it was obvious. But I’ve never seen it.