The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star

That's not a young crescent Moon posing behind cathedral towers after sunset. It's Venus in a crescent phase. About 40 million kilometers away and about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight, it was captured with camera and telephoto lens in this series of exposures as it set in western skies on January 1 from Veszprem, Hungary. The bright celestial beacon was languishing in the evening twilight, its days as the Evening Star coming to a close as 2022 began. But it was also growing larger in apparent size and becoming an ever thinner crescent in telescopic views. Heading toward a (non-judgemental) inferior conjunction, the inner planet will be positioned between Earth and Sun on January 9 and generally lost from view in the solar glare. A crescent Venus will soon reappear though. Rising in the east by mid-month just before the Sun as the brilliant Morning Star.

from NASA https://ift.tt/3EYOMDm

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Lightning and Orion Beyond Uluru

What's happening behind Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site , Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings. Composed of sandstone , Uluru has slowly formed over the past 300 million years as softer rock eroded away. In the background of the featured image taken in mid-May, a raging thunderstorm is visible. Far behind both Uluru and the thunderstorm is a star-filled sky highlighted by the constellation of Orion. The Uluru region has been a home to humans for over 22,000 years. Local indigenous people have long noted that when the stars that compose the modern constellation of Orion first appear in the night sky, a hot season involving lightning storm s will soon be arriving. from NASA https://ift.tt/3uy2PLM

A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland

All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland , on a quiet September night, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again. This time, surprisingly, pareidolia cally, the night lit up with an amazing shape reminiscent of a giant phoenix . With camera equipment at the ready, two quick sky images were taken, followed immediately by a third of the land. The mountain in the background is Helgafell , while the small foreground river is called Kald��, both located about 30 kilometers north of Iceland's capital Reykjav��k . Seasoned skywatchers will note that just above the mountain, toward the left, is the constellation of Orion , while the Pleiades star cluster is also visible just above the frame center. The 2016 aurora , which lasted only a minute and was soon gone forever -- would possibly be dismissed as an fanciful fable -

A Rorschach Aurora

If you see this as a monster's face, don't panic. It's only pareidolia , often experienced as the tendency to see faces in patterns of light and shadow. In fact, the startling visual scene is actually a 180 degree panorama of Northern Lights , digitally mirrored like inkblots on a folded piece of paper. Frames used to construct it were captured on a September night from the middle of a waterfall-crossing suspension bridge in Jamtland, Sweden. With geomagnetic storms triggered by recent solar activity , auroral displays could be very active at planet Earth's high latitudes in the coming days. But if you see a monster's face in your own neighborhood tomorrow night, it might just be Halloween. from NASA https://ift.tt/3bvoA6V

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