Terry's Astronomy Thread.

[Bluearrowll]

@Noname219: Absolutely, feel free to share images in the future as well. Those are awesome! Where abouts were those taken?

What's in the sky tonight?
June 16, 2013

-First-quarter Moon (exact at 1:24 p.m. EDT). The Moon shines under the dim head of Virgo.

-Venus (magnitude – 3.8) is gaining altitude very gradually, low in evening twilight. Look for it in the west-northwest. Mercury has closed to just 2° or 3° from Venus, but Mercury is fading fast: from magnitude +0.6 on the 15th to +1.6 on the 22nd. Look for it to Venus's upper left (for mid-northern observers) early in the week, directly left around June 16th and 17th, and below Venus by the 20th.

Astro Picture of the Day:
June 16, 2013

Source:
Taken by Maximilian Teodorescu on June 15, 2013 @ Dumitrana (Ilfov), Romania, using a SW Mak 150mm (F/12), Canon 550D, ISO 800, 1/1250s. The Moon is waxing full this week, which means there's more bright territory for spaceships to cross. Yesterday, astrophotographer Maximilian Teodorescu of Dumitrana, Romania, caught the International Space Station passing in front of the Moon in broad daylight. "In the past I have captured the silhouette of the ISS in front of the Sun or Moon," says Teodorescu. But this time the ISS was not silhouetted. It was even more brightly lit than the Moon behind it. "I photographed them both in plain daylight, with the Sun still hanging at 26 degrees above the horizon."

Travelling at 17,000 mph, the ISS flits across the face of the Moon in only a fraction of a second. Teodorescu knew when to activate his Canon 550D digital camera using precise transit predictions from CalSky.