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Moon Lightning
| Title |
Moon Lightning |
| Explanation |
Moonsets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020921.html ] are not often quite as exciting as this one. But amateur astronomer Marc-Andre Besel was impressed by the brilliant lighting displays that joined the first quarter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010428.html ] Moon and stars of the constellation Scorpius [ http://hawastsoc.org/deepsky/sco/index.html ] in western skies. On August 22, 2004, his view looked [ http://people.freenet.de/besel/ Fotoalben/Blitz/PAGE1.HTM ] across the Gulf of Mexico from Anna Maria Island, Florida, USA, a region that would experience even more stormy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040903.html ] weather in the coming days. The alluring digital image is a time exposure, by chance [ http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/luceneweb/ fullimage.jsp?photoId=S83-40452 ] capturing the details of a brief flash of lightning [ http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer2.html ] along with an overexposed Moon and dramatic cloud formations. In fact, the exposure is long enough to show the background stars as short streaks or trails [ http://www.astropix.com/HTML/ I_ASTROP/I06/I0601/I0601.HTM ]. The bright yellowish star trail, just above and right of the lightning flash, is red giant star Antares [ http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/antares.html ]. |
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