Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Old Faithful Below a Yellowstone Sky

My new desktop image
click on image to enlarge

Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (Astropics.com)

Explanation: You don't have to be at Yellowstone to see a sky this beautiful, but it helps. Only at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA, would you see the picturesque foreground of the famous Old Faithful Geyser erupting in front an already picturesque sky. Old Faithful Geyser, visible in the foreground, is seen propelling a stream of hot water over 30 meters in the air. This happens predictably for a few minutes about every 90 minutes. Also predictable are the brightest orbs that populate the nighttime sky, although those visible at any one time keep changing. Visible far in the background sky of this mid-July image are the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy on the left, and the bright planet Jupiter on the right. Jupiter is the brightest celestial object in the entire image. Old Faithful has been erupting at least since the late 1800s.

4 comments:

Tommykey said...

I have yet to see the Milky Way in the night sky.

When I was in the Philippines, I was hoping to glimpse the Magellanic Clouds, but most nights it was cloudy and the visibility poor.

Stardust said...

tommy, it's nearly impossible to see even the Big and Little Dippers, Orion's Belt, etc. in the sky around Chicagoland, but when we were camping out west...spectacular. The best starry sky I have ever seen was in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The sky looked very similar to the one in this post. I would love to move to a place where I can see the stars without light interference.

V said...

Hi stardust, came by way of searching.

I like your blog. Isn't APOD great? I check it every morning with my first cup of coffee.

Stardust said...

v - I check APOD every night before going to bed, as soon as the new image is posted. Astrophotographers should get more recognition than they do.