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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Tomorrow's picture:

Explanation: Colorful stars trail through this late summer, night skyscape from Cape Cod , Massachusetts. The picture was composed by stacking 12 consecutive 1 minute long digital camera exposures to follow the trails, a reflection of our fair planet's daily rotation . It also records faint clouds of the Milky Way in the clear sky, stretching above a local drive-in movie theater . In fact, watching movies from cars at the drive-in was once a more common night time activity. But while the stars still shine, drive-in theaters have faded from the American landscape over the decades since the 1950s. Still, this recent scene includes a short exposure made as the projector beamed a space age image to the movie screen, and drive-in skygazers watched a view of the Earth below the International Space Station, under the stars above .

Date September 20, 2013
Credit day for night < | Archive | Index | Search | Calendar | RSS | Education | About APOD | Discuss | > Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.