I stop by every night and look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day. This one, as many others also have been, is extraordinarily beautiful. I must confess that when I see these pictures I usually am filled with awe and automatically start humming an old hymn titled "How Great Thou Art".
Sorry about that but I just can't seem to help myself. Hope you don't mind. Just thought I'd let you know that at least one person looks at your pictures and doesn't have the faintest inkling about the meanings of ascension, declinaton, etc., but still enjoys them immensely.
Thank you very much.
It's much simpler than you may think: it's just a coordinate system that allows you to define a location in the celestial "sphere." "Right ascension" is analogous to longitude, and "declination" is analogous to latitude.
It's really that simple.