Star clusters, planets, and a red giant posed for this portrait of the night [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] sky from rural Jasper County, Iowa, USA. Astrophotographer [
http://geocities.co…] Stan Richard recorded the four minute time exposure looking east around midnight on September 3rd at Ashton-Wildwood Park. To avoid star trails [
http://pages.prodig…], his camera was mounted on a barndoor-style [
http://casa.colorad…barndoor.html ] tracker to compensate for the Earth's rotation [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Can you identify his celestial subjects? (Click on the image for a labeled version.) The Pleiades [
http://www.pantheon…pleiades.html ] and Hyades [
http://www.pantheon…], the closest open or galactic star clusters [
http://www.seds.org…] to the Sun, should be recognizable to beginning stargazers [
http://starchild.gs…]. Of course gas giant Jupiter [
http://galileo.jpl.…] rules as the brightest object in the picture and the largest planet in the Solar System, but second largest planet Saturn [
http://www.jpl.nasa…] is also visible nearby. For sheer size cool red giant star Aldebaran [
http://www.astro.ui…] is more impressive though, spanning about forty times the diameter of the Sun. Sixty light-years away and yellowish in this picture, Aldebaran is known as Alpha Tauri, the brightest star in Taurus [
http://aibn47.astro…taurus/ ], the Bull.
Explanation
Star clusters, planets, and a red giant posed for this portrait of the night [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] sky from rural Jasper County, Iowa, USA. Astrophotographer [
http://geocities.co…] Stan Richard recorded the four minute time exposure looking east around midnight on September 3rd at Ashton-Wildwood Park. To avoid star trails [
http://pages.prodig…], his camera was mounted on a barndoor-style [
http://casa.colorad…barndoor.html ] tracker to compensate for the Earth's rotation [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Can you identify his celestial subjects? (Click on the image for a labeled version.) The Pleiades [
http://www.pantheon…pleiades.html ] and Hyades [
http://www.pantheon…], the closest open or galactic star clusters [
http://www.seds.org…] to the Sun, should be recognizable to beginning stargazers [
http://starchild.gs…]. Of course gas giant Jupiter [
http://galileo.jpl.…] rules as the brightest object in the picture and the largest planet in the Solar System, but second largest planet Saturn [
http://www.jpl.nasa…] is also visible nearby. For sheer size cool red giant star Aldebaran [
http://www.astro.ui…] is more impressive though, spanning about forty times the diameter of the Sun. Sixty light-years away and yellowish in this picture, Aldebaran is known as Alpha Tauri, the brightest star in Taurus [
http://aibn47.astro…taurus/ ], the Bull.
Explanation
