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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.

A Northern Winter Sky Panorama

Explanation: What stars shine in Earth's northern hemisphere during winter? The featured image highlights a number of bright stars visible earlier this month. The image is a 360-degree horizontal-composite panorama of 66 vertical frames taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location at about 2:30 am. Famous stars visible in the picture include Castor & Pollux toward the southeast on the left, Sirius just over the horizon toward the south, Capella just over the arch of the Milky Way Galaxy toward the west, and Polaris toward the north on the right. Captured by coincidence is a meteor on the far left. In the foreground is the Museum of the Orava Village in Zuberec , Slovakia . This village recreates rural life in the region hundreds of years ago, while the image captures a timeless sky surely familar to village residents, a sky also shared with northern residents around the world .

Free Download: 2020 APOD Calendar

Date December 24, 2019
Credit Image Credit & Copyright: Tomas Slovinsky
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.