Sun, Space Shuttle, and Space Station

This picture is cool, because as the APOD entry stated, the image is fairly sharp. The space station isn't named, but the shuttle is the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It had just docked off and is about 200 meters away from the station. The objects are about 550 km away from their observing point. Another similar opportunity took place on Sept. 17.

Two-in-One

I kinda have a double post here, jsut because I have two significant things to point out. So here goes.
The other morning (Saturday, Sept. 16) I was driving to take the ACT at around 7:30 AM and when I noticed the sun, it was huuuuge. It it was somewhere betweent he size of a silver dollar and a Gamecube disc (I didn't get a chance to measure fists since I was driving). I just thought it was cool because it reminded me of the picture of the kid holding the sun up.

My other post is about something I just found online. It was a post on Digg. To describe it, here's from the "About" Page:
"The Two Micron All Sky Survey is one of the most ambitious digital measurements of the sky ever made. Its final release will provide the astronomical community with over one million research-quality images in each of the three infrared colors observed by 2MASS.

During the course of operations, color images of hundreds of fields have been assembled by the 2MASS staff. These extensive mosaics sometimes cover many degrees of sky and have been carefully stitched together from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individual images.

This "Showcase" gallery will highlight some of the very best images by the 2MASS survey and will provide them at full resolution, often large enough to be suitable for high resolution print work.

Watch for periodic updates!

For more information on 2MASS, please visit the links on the gallery main page and at the 2MASS home page."

Here's the link to the main page, wher eyou can find images of all sorts of astronomy-related pictures.
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery/showcase/

Saturn at Night

What's really neat about this picture is that while the light on earth at night is caused by either man-made lights or the reflection of the sun's light off of the moon, the light of Saturn at night is caused by the reflection on the sun's light off of Saturn's rings.
This image was taken by the Cassini, who began orbiting Saturn in 2004 and will continue to do so util 2008.

Messier 110

I find it so weird to look at galaxies while stars are in the foreground, as in this picture. To me it looks like a cheap effect, like making some stars in front of others to make them look different sizes, or like something from the original Star Trek. As cheesy as it looks, though, it really puts things into perspective.
This elliptical galaxy is the last M object. It's actually a satellite galaxy (I didn't know those existed until now!) of our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. This make sit a part of our galaxy cluster. M110 is roughly 15,000 light years accross, and although it is thought that most elliptical galaxies do not have dust and other particles to form new stars, it is clear that this galaxy does.

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300

This gorgeous spiral galaxy [generic Galaxy name here] has a few interesting specialties about it. It's about the same size as our Milky Way, but is not believed to have a massive black hole in it's center. What I find odd is that it does have a nucleus (about 3000 ly across). It has some kind of bar going across it.