The Pithy Amateur Astronomer

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121205.html

Explanation: Why does this galaxy emit such spectacular jets? No one is sure, but it is likely related to an active supermassive black hole at its center. The galaxy at the image center, Hercules A, appears to be a relatively normal elliptical galaxy in visible light. When imaged in radio waves, however, tremendous plasma jets over one million light years long appear. Detailed analyses indicate that the central galaxy, also known as 3C 348, is actually over 1,000 times more massive than our Milky Way Galaxy, and the central black hole is nearly 1,000 times more massive than the black hole at our Milky Way's center. Pictured above is a visible light image obtained by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope superposed with a radio image taken by the recently upgraded Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in New Mexico, USA. The physics that creates the jets remains a topic of research with a likely energy source being infalling matter swirling toward the central black hole.

I am a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his ability to bring the field of astronomy to the masses. He has a radio show/podcast located at http://www.startalkradio.net/ and it is definitely worth a listen to. I have subscribed to it and I am currently listening to older episodes to catch up to the latest episode. So far, they are all a joy to listen to and I am sure all the episodes will be equally as great.

Found this on the interwebs and thought I would re-post it. It's an amazing picture of Europa, Jupiter, and the Great Red Spot. I wonder how Jupiter would appear from Europa. I do not know where I found the image at but if I do or you know, I will be glad to cite it.

It's not every day that you get to see a crescent Sun. This was caused by the partial eclipse that happened a few days ago.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120522.html

This is a good picture of an eclipse. These types of pictures make me realize how big the moon is but the Sun is even bigger.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120520.html

Explanation: What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! In early 2009, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In particular the above image, taken from the Mall of Asia seawall, caught a partially eclipsed Sun setting over Manila Bay in the Philippines. Piers are visible in silhouette in the foreground. Eclipse chasers and well placed sky enthusiasts captured many other interesting and artistic images of the year's only annular solar eclipse, including movies, eclipse shadow arrays, and rings of fire. Today parts of the Sun again will become briefly blocked by the Moon, again visible to some as a partial eclipse of a setting Sun. A small swath of Earth, however, will be exposed to the unusual ring of fire effect when the Moon is completely surrounded by the glowing light of the slightly larger Sun.

Russian Satellite Elektro-L took this picture of Earth. The detail is stunning and the color looks like an artist added it (even though it wasn't). Below is the post from Universe Today where I found the picture.

When some people look at clouds, they interpret the shapes and make comparisons to other objects. I do the same but instead of clouds I look at astronomical bodies.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110922.html


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream


Explanation: Linking spiral arms, two large colliding galaxies are featured in this remarkable cosmic portrait constructed using image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive. Recorded in astronomer Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 272, the pair is otherwise known as NGC 6050 near center, and IC 1179 at upper right. A third galaxy, likely also a member of the interacting system, can be spotted above and left of larger spiral NGC 6050. They lie some 450 million light-years away in the Hercules Galaxy Cluster. At that estimated distance, the picture spans over 150 thousand light-years. Although this scenario does look peculiar, galaxy collisions and their eventual mergers are now understood to be common, with Arp 272 representing a stage in this inevitable process. In fact, the nearby large spiral Andromeda Galaxy is known to be approaching our own galaxy and Arp 272 may offer a glimpse of the far future collision between Andromeda and the Milky Way.

This image reminds me of some serious confetti.

Abell 2744: Pandora's Cluster of Galaxies 
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Merten (ITA, AOB), & D. Coe (STScI)
Explanation: Why is this cluster of galaxies so jumbled? Far from a smooth distribution, Abell 2744 not only has knots of galaxies, but the X-ray emitting hot gas (colored red) in the cluster appears distributed differently than the dark matter. The dark matter, taking up over 75 percent of the cluster mass and colored blue in the above image, was inferred by that needed to create the distortion of background galaxies by gravitational lensing. The jumble appears to result from the slow motion collision of at least four smaller galaxy clusters over the past few billion years. The above picture combinesoptical images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope with X-ray images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Abell 2744, dubbed Pandora's cluster, spans over two million light years and can best be seen with a really large telescope toward the constellation of the Sculptor.

The space shuttle appears to break through the clouds in what would be the ultimate adrenalin rush for me.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110525.html
Credit: NASA
 

  Explanation: What's that rising from the clouds? The space shuttle. If you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time last week, you could have seen something very unusual -- the space shuttle Endeavour launching to orbit. Images of the rising shuttle and its plume became widely circulated over the web shortly after Endeavour's final launch. The above image was taken from a shuttle training aircraft and is not copyrighted. Taken well above the clouds, the image can be matched with similar images of the same shuttle plume taken below the clouds. Hot glowing gasses expelled by the engines are visible near the rising shuttle, as well as a long smoke plume. A shadow of the plume appears on the cloud deck, indicating the direction of the Sun. The shuttle Endeavour remains docked with the International Space Station and is currently scheduled to return to Earth next week.