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APOD

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. Moving the cursor over the image will bring up an annotated version. Clicking on the image will bring up the highest resolution version available.See Explanation. Moving the cursor over the image will bring up an annotated version. Clicking on the image will bring up the highest resolution version available.

Behold the Universe

Explanation: What if you climbed up on a rock and discovered the Universe? You can. Although others have noted much of it before, you can locate for yourself stars , planets , and even the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy . All you need is a dark clear sky -- the rock is optional. If you have a camera, you can further image faint nebulas , galaxies , and long filaments of interstellar dust . If you can process digital image s , you can bring out faint features, highlight specific colors , and merge foreground and background images. In fact, an industrious astrophotographer has done all of these to create the presented picture . All of the component images were taken early last month on the same night within a few meters of each other. The picturesque setting was Sand Beach in Stonington , Maine , USA with the camera pointed south over Penobscot Bay .

News: APOD is now available through Facebook translated into Catalan .

Date August 3, 2016
Credit Image Credit & Copyright: A. Garrett Evans ; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.