These photo composites come to us courtesy of astronaut Don Pettit, aboard the International Space Station. There’s a set of 18 on Flickr for your perusal.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: “My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.”

There’s something special about this picture of last night’s Soyuz launch from Baikonur. Maybe it’s the “meta” of watching the video camera watching the launch; maybe it’s the lovely bokeh formed by the launch tower lights. (I believe that it’s much better to look at the launch of any rocket, not through a viewfinder… but it’s a cool photo.)

The Soyuz rocket is seen in the monitor of a video camera moments before Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineers Joseph Acaba and Sergei Revin arrived to board the rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for their flight to join their crew mates already aboard the International Space Station. The craft successfully launched at 11:01 p.m. EDT, Monday, May 14, 2012.

The trio will dock to the station’s Poisk Mini-Research Module at 12:38 a.m. Thursday, bringing Expedition 31 to its full six-member complement.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

LEGO model of Discovery, from 2001: A Space Odyssey

No, not space shuttle Discovery, I’m talking about the 2001: A Space Odyssey version. Spindly and memorable, and entirely build-able, with just 3,861 pieces. (Check out those engines!)

Engines, LEGO model of Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey

When I saw this image of the Omega Nebula, I was instantly reminded of labradorite, one of my favorite minerals. (I even dreamed about it once. Stop laughing.) Below, I present a most excellent photo of labradorite, for comparison.

Edited to add: Do you enjoy seeing things in star clouds? There’s a site for that.

Labradorite (closeup), photo © Wood's Stoneworks and Photo Factory

Birds Silhouetted against SuperMoon, photo © Don Kittle

Why wait until Tuesday when I can post some of my favorite SuperMoon pictures today?? (Especially since my own lame iPod photo of the SuperMoon was… lame.) Above, a superb shot with birds in flight by Don Kittle; below, SuperMoon above Seattle (by Liem Bahneman), and San Francisco (by David Yu.)

Photo of "Supermoon" as it rises over Seattle on May 5, 2012, photo © Liem Bahneman

SuperMoon rising above San Francisco, photo © David Yu

Interesting plans are afoot, to use the Moon’s surface as a mirror for observation:

This mottled landscape showing the impact crater Tycho is among the most violent-looking places on our Moon. Astronomers didn’t aim NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study Tycho, however. The image was taken in preparation to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun’s face on June 5-6.

Hubble cannot look at the Sun directly, so astronomers are planning to point the telescope at the Earth’s moon, using it as a mirror to capture reflected sunlight and isolate the small fraction of the light that passes through Venus’s atmosphere. Imprinted on that small amount of light are the fingerprints of the planet’s atmospheric makeup.

These observations will mimic a technique that is already being used to sample the atmospheres of giant planets outside our solar system passing in front of their stars. In the case of the Venus transit observations, astronomers already know the chemical makeup of Venus’s atmosphere, and that it does not show signs of life on the planet. But the Venus transit will be used to test whether this technique will have a chance of detecting the very faint fingerprints of an Earth-like planet, even one that might be habitable for life, outside our solar system that similarly transits its own star. Venus is an excellent proxy because it is similar in size and mass to our planet.

The astronomers will use an arsenal of Hubble instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Camera 3, and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, to view the transit in a range of wavelengths, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. During the transit, Hubble will snap images and perform spectroscopy, dividing the sunlight into its constituent colors, which could yield information about the makeup of Venus’s atmosphere.

Pretty fascinating stuff!

Credit: Composite Image Data - Hubble Legacy Archive; Adrian Zsilavec, Michelle Qualls, Adam Block / NOAO / AURA / NSF; Processing - André van der Hoeven

It’s time for an awesome galaxy picture, and today’s APOD fits the bill — another treasure dug from the Hubble Legacy Archive! (I’ve uploaded the full version for your viewing pleasure, click the image to view. You’re welcome.)

Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe: a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Along with prominent dust lanes and a bright central core, this colorful composite image highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries that trace the galaxy’s spiral arms. The high resolution galaxy portrait is a mosaic of data from Hubble’s sharp ACS camera combined with groundbased color image data. M106 (aka NGC 4258) is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Energetic active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.

This… THIS is the photo I was waiting for. Thank you NASA and Bill Ingalls!

Space shuttle Enterprise, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), is seen off in the distance behind the Statue of Liberty, Friday, April 27, 2012, in New York. Enterprise was the first shuttle orbiter built for NASA performing test flights in the atmosphere and was incapable of spaceflight. Originally housed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Enterprise will be demated from the SCA and placed on a barge that will eventually be moved by tugboat up the Hudson River to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in June. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

But wait, there’s more! My tweetup buddy David Parmet took this beauty:

Space Shuttle Enterprise flyover, photo by David Parmet

And Ben Cooper of LaunchPhotography.com captures Lady Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline:

Enterprise flies over lower Manhattan, photo by Ben Cooper, launchphotography.com

For more interesting Enterprise/NYC shots, check out this collection at Gothamist, the NASA HQ photostream at Flickr, or check the #spottheshuttle hashtag on Twitter!

After the amazing photos taken during Discovery’s #SpottheShuttle flight to Washington, D.C., I’m very much looking forward to seeing what New York City viewers capture, as Enterprise migrates north this morning! (I’ll post an update with my favorites, later today.) For now, enjoy this awesome shot of the ferry 747′s stats, with Enterprise perched above and waiting….

The space shuttle Enterprise is seen mated on top of the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) at Washington Dulles International Airport, Saturday, April 21, 2012, in Sterling, Va. Painted graphics line the side of NASA 905 depicting the various ferry flights the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft has supported during the Space Shuttle Program, including the tests using the space shuttle prototype Enterprise. Space Shuttle Transition and Retirement engineers Saturday completed the final steps to ready Space Shuttle Enterprise for its flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport while managers continue to evaluate the expected weather that has postponed delivery past Monday. Enterprise, the first orbiter built for the Space Shuttle Program, was used primarily for ground and flight tests within the atmosphere. The initial testing period named Approach and Landing Test (ALT) included a flight on February 18, 1977 atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Enterprise will go on permanent display at the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York in June. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

"Beyond the Rim" by Brad Goldpaint, goldpaintphotography.com

Just when I thought Crater Lake couldn’t get any more photogenic, Brad Goldpaint captures a Lyrid meteor over it.

Did you see it? One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a meteor to flash is typically less than the time it takes for a head to turn. Possibly, though, the glory of seeing bright meteors shoot across and knowing that they were once small pebbles on another world might make it all worthwhile, even if your observing partner(s) could not share in every particular experience. Peaking over the past few days, a dark moonless sky allowed the Lyrids meteor shower to exhibit as many as 30 visible meteors per hour from some locations. A bright Lyrid meteor streaks above picturesque Crater Lake in Oregon, USA, in the above composite of nine exposures taken last week. Snow covers the foreground, while the majestic central band of our home galaxy arches well behind the serene lake. Other meteor showers this year include the Perseids in mid-August and the Leonids in mid-November, both expected to also dodge the glare of a bright Moon in 2012.