NASA has posted a collection of historical photos on Flickr, all copyright-free — this is just one of many cool images! It amazes me to see these launch photos where it looks like the rocket is static, hanging in mid-air. Gravity-defying! At first I typed “gravy” — gravy-defying as well!

Hat tip to the Planetary Society Blog for the info and link!

Credit for both images: U.S. Naval Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute

These remarkable illustrations come from the 17th century Uranographicarum star atlas by Johannis Hevelius, made available here, free for non-commercial use by the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Space Telescope Science Institute. Interestingly: “Hevilius pictured the celestial sphere from the outside looking in, so the views posted here are mirror images of how they should appear against a starfield seen from the center of the celestial sphere. (In other words, you have to flip them.)”

As mentioned Wednesday, a Soyuz took off earlier today, carrying Expedition 19 to the International Space Station. This phenomenal launch photo by Bill Ingalls gives me excited fits; hope you enjoy. There’s quite a few more to look at, as well; I think downloading and enjoying the largest resolution available (otherwise known as ENORMO-VISION) is the only way to go.

In other heart-stoppingly-beautiful image news, the Flickr blog had a feature today on “stellar” Flickr photography, talking a bit about the International Year of Astronomy and such; this image by orvaratli was featured. The colors are what get me, and apparently such a shot is not common: “the combination of clear skies, snowy foreground and highly active Aurora is a rare thing in Iceland but it makes a great shot.”

Last, but absolutely not least, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Program (LOIRP) released their second image last weekend, a fantastic view of Copernicus crater. For those unfamiliar with the program, the above link gives the history nicely, and I look forward to many more images in the future!

Speaking of ENORMO-VISION, the full-size, full-resolution version can be downloaded for the low, low ticket price of 2.2 GIGABYTES (…the satellite internet says NO. Will have to wait on that one until I’m somewhere fast… and for a few hours solid.)

Enjoy the pics — maybe Friday picspam will become a regular thing?

I’m taking a break from the space artwork this week because I just have to share this: the sharpest picture of Jupiter ever taken from the ground. Let me repeat that: this picture was taken FROM THE GROUND. NOT from Earth’s orbit or anywhere else.

In celebration of Hubble Heritage’s 10th anniversary, they released this “landscape” image on October 2nd. The image is beautiful — Hubble images are, in general, quite pretty — but what boggled my noggin was the downloadable size. The full resolution version is over 7,700 pixels wide. You have to see it to believe it!

The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a ‘landscape’ image from the cosmos. Cutting across a nearby star-forming region, called NGC 3324, are the “hills and valleys” of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. NGC 3324 is located in the constellation Carina, about 7,200 light-years away from Earth. This image is a composite of data taken with two of Hubble’s science instruments. Data taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in 2006 isolated light emitted by hydrogen. More recent data, taken in 2008 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), isolated light emitted by sulfur and oxygen gas. To create a color composite, the data from the sulfur filter are represented by red, from the oxygen filter by blue, and from the hydrogen filter by green.

I don’t usually post today’s APOD — I usually wait a few days — but, well, today’s APOD photo is nothing short of spectacular. Since this is yet another section of the vast and wonderful Veil Nebula, I’m not surprised it caught my eye! To put it in geek speak, that whole region of the sky is made of WIN.

Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, Univ. Arizona
Explanation: Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch’s Broom Nebula. The expanding debris cloud gains its colors by sweeping up and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch’s Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright star 52 Cygni is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova.

Today’s Picture of the Day @ NASA is the Peony Nebula, and this dreamily-colored image is downloadable in standard desktop/wallpaper sizes.

If our galaxy were to host its own version of the Olympics, the title for the brightest known star would go to a massive star called Eta Carina. However, a new runner-up, now the second-brightest star in our galaxy, has been discovered in the galaxy’s dusty and frenzied interior. This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the new silver medalist, circled in the inset above, in the central region of our Milky Way.

Dubbed the Peony nebula star, this blazing ball of gas shines with the equivalent light of 3.2 million suns. The reigning champ, Eta Carina, produces the equivalent of 4.7 million suns worth of light. However, astronomers say these estimates are uncertain, and it’s possible that the Peony nebula star could be even brighter than Eta Carina.

If the Peony star is so bright, why doesn’t it stand out more in this view? The answer is dust. This star is located in a very dusty region jam packed with stars. In fact, there could be other super bright stars still hidden deep in the stellar crowd. Spitzer’s infrared eyes allowed it to pierce the dust and assess the Peony nebula star’s true brightness. Likewise, infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope in Chile were integral in calculating the Peony nebula star’s luminosity.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ.

NASA Images is a great new(er) resource developed last year as a joint project between NASA and Archive.org. If you’ve been looking for a one-stop resource for everything NASA does, you just found it!

NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers.

The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity.

For this week’s Perspective, I chose something that is indeed from a different perspective… literally! The above image was taken from the International Space Station during STS-123:

STS123-E-008018 (21 March 2008) — While docked and onboard the International Space Station, a STS-123 Endeavour crewmember captured the glowing green beauty of the Aurora Borealis. Looking northward across the Gulf of Alaska, over a low pressure area (cloud vortex), the aurora brightens the night sky.

(Download the large version here.)

The Kennedy Media Gallery is my one-stop source for launch and landing photos of the Space Shuttle missions. Sure, the NASA Human Spaceflight site gives you some of them… but not ALL, not like this! The above is just one example (from the STS-123 night landing, earlier this year) of the gobs and gobs of photos awaiting your downloading pleasure. Got broadband?