Moon Darbar  

Originally uploaded by Light and Life.

Flickr Find 5 of 5. I thought it was time once again to profile some of the great pictures that can be found on Flickr. Many astrophotographers can be found in the various groups all over the photo sharing website.Here are a few from the astrophotography group, which is always featured in the sidebar on Orbiting Frog.

For my final featured photo in this series, I thought it was worth proving that you don’t need a telescope to take excellent astronomy shots. The Moon here is surrounded by thick clouds, which give it a dramatic and artistic aura.

Cocoon Nebula    

Originally uploaded by banarger.

Flickr Find 4 of 5. I thought it was time once again to profile some of the great pictures that can be found on Flickr. Many astrophotographers can be found in the various groups all over the photo sharing website. Here are a few from the astrophotography group, which is always featured in the sidebar on Orbiting Frog.

The Cocoon nebula is fond in Cygnus. It comprises both reflection and emission nebula, which is unusual. This image is an excellent photo of the region and shows the colours very well.

    

Antennae Galaxies - Originally uploaded by dgoodin.

Flickr Find 3 of 5. I thought it was time once again to profile some of the great pictures that can be found on Flickr. Many astrophotographers can be found in the various groups all over the photo sharing website.Here are a few from the astrophotography group, which is always featured in the sidebar on Orbiting Frog.

This image is so good I honestly wondered if it was really taken by an amateur. Absolutely brilliant. You can compare this to the HST image of the same objects and marvel at the accuracy of this earth-bound image.

First try at Saturn - Originally uploaded by Marc Arnault.

Flickr Find 2 of 5. I thought it was time once again to profile some of the great pictures that can be found on Flickr. Many astrophotographers can be found in the various groups all over the photo sharing website. Here are a few from the astrophotography group, which is always featured in the sidebar on Orbiting Frog.

Saturn is a great first target for astronomers taking photos. Its not as easy as you think. A lot of it depends on equipment, and then more on timing and skill. Here is someone’s first try. It may not be the best image you’ll ever see of the ringed planet, but no high-tech wizardry went into - just everyday stuff and a bit of hard work.

Polarity - Originally uploaded by Computer Science Geek.

Flickr Find 1 of 5. I thought it was time once again to profile some of the great pictures that can be found on Flickr. Many astrophotographers can be found in the various groups all over the photo sharing website. Here are a few from the astrophotography group, which is always featured in the sidebar on Orbiting Frog.

This is fab star trail image. I always love these, they say something very deep about the Earth spinning on its axis. They also take some patience to create and sadly, they require fairly rare, dark skies.

Here are some of my personal favourite wallpapers for your desktop (and iPhone). Sizes 1900×1200, 1024×768, 1280×800 and 800×600 are all here to fill your eyes with spacey goodness. Let your own scattering of icons sit amongst glorious nebula and spectacular scenes!

I usually have a nice space picture as my computer’s desktop wallpaper. Today someone asked me where I find them. Well I find them all over the place. In the spirit of sharing, here are ten of the best. I have credited where possible. As far as I know, all images are Creative Commons licensed (but feel free to correct me).

Orion’s Belt (Credit: Digital Sky Survey)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Galactic Centre (Credit: Susan Stolovy, Caltech)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Helix (Credit: NASA, JPL)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Rover Shadow (Credit: NASA)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Pleiades (Credit: J. Stauffer, Caltech)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

ISS (Credit: STS-117 Shuttle Crew)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Four Suns (Credit: T. Pyle, SSC)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Sepia Moon (Credit: Stefan Seip)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Aurora (Credit: Joshua Strang, USAF)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

NGC1977 (Credit: Martin Pugh)
800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1900×1200 | iPhone

Colorado Meteor
Originally uploaded by Mr Geoff.

Yes its that time of year again, get your 12 things ready and then pootle outside to watch the Perseids. This meteor shower peaks on Sunday night (I think) but you can catch some good shooting stars anytime up to about Tuesday really.

This photo is from the Flickr Meteors group and you never know, maybe you’ll see something amazing like this too.

Enjoy.

IRAM 30m Sierra Nevada
Originally uploaded by juanjaen.

This is an Infra Red telescope with a 30m dish found in Sierra Nevada, Spain. I have used data from this scope in my own research and hadn’t realised quite how cool it looked in reality.

Observatoire Haute-Provence

Originally uploaded by Worldtraveller.

This is a lovely long-exposure photo where the telescope dome has been rotated to allow the shot to appear to show the whole scope. The 0.8m telescope is the Haute-Provence Observatory built in 1937 near the current site of St.Michel l’Observatoire. I once went to see this place with my wife and her parents but it was closed on Wednesdays. I love france for its laid back approach but I do wish they could sort out their opening hours.

The morning sun burns into the clouds…Originally uploaded by hole-in-one.

This image from Flickr shows the rising Sun as it glows through the clouds. It is quite reminiscent of nebula containing or reflecting powerful light from stellar nurseries and is a good reminder that sometimes these nebulae are not always as they seem. By that I mena than in this image, the Sun is not actually in amongst the cloud but does look a lot like it could be.

But its a lovely picture never-the-less and if anyone has a similar effect captured on video I’d be very interested to see it.

ISSOriginally uploaded by jarguel.

Haven’t seen much that I’ve liked in the Astrophotography group on Flickr lately but I went trawling earlier and found this lovely capture of the ISS from someone’s back garden. Thought it was worth sharing.