Nasa Astronomy Picture of the day - Congrats Anthony

Stunning Picture Anthony! That would compliment your analemna (is that how its spelled?)

Close enough ... analemma ....

regards capturing the sun's position!

The idea came about when I had some difficulty with some friends who could not understand the concept behind the analemma and who challenged the idea that the sun moves so wildly around the sky.

In trying to find a way to get them to understand, I came up with the idea of pursing the rising sun during the solstices and equinox. Not only is the photo quite graphic but the variation in azimuth reaches a whopping 66 degrees. I received an email from a fellow in Sweden who mentioned to me that his variation (being nearer to the pole) is 102 degrees!

Anthony.

Very nice image Anthony,
excellent work

Dave,

I think I may have been inadvertently ambiguous with my earlier message. I consider any work appearing on APOD as the ultimate reward and, hence, for my equating it with the "Nobel Prize" of astrophotography. The way I expressed myself in the earlier message could very easily be misread inadvertently due to the fact I used "it" instead of "APOD" ("I personally consider it the "Nobel Prize" of astrophotography").

Anthony, your modesty knows no bounds I don't think the meaning was lost, in fact I think it was a good analogy, hence the smile! And there is a greater prize than APOD- my father keeps your Moon over the temple of poseidon photo as his PC desktop wallpaper and wont allow anyone to change it

Dave,

I am honoured by the use of the photo as a desktop. I have a couple of items which would of interest for a pleasant surprise for your dad.

(1) the April/2006 full moon will be rising under the "proper" conditions, namely at an azimuth and altitude which will not only coincide with the Temple of Poseidon but it will rise approximately 20 minutes after sunset which means the lighting between the rising full moon and the immediate foreground will be in balance (thus ONE exposure). This time I will be using my TeleVue Pronto (focal length 450 mm) in lieu of my EOS 100-300 zoom (at 300 mm) so as to get a slightly better field of view.

(2) I am working on something similar but this time with the Parthenon/Acropolis and the rising moon. My reverse engineering is nearly complete and which will be followed by the identification of the "proper" full moon for a similar photo as (1)

To this end, we can indeed replace the PC desktop with something similar and without your dad knowing who/how/when!

Anthony.

PS. If I had known about this earlier, I would have sent you a 20x30 cm printed copy of the photo.

Anthony, That's a unique view of something most people don't notice! Very well thought out, you make it look so easy.

Too many baddie clouds here in Ireland

Keith..

Don't know if ye are aware of this but i have just seen another great image from you Anthony of October's annular eclipse in the January issue of Sky & Telescope along with a quote.

It is a great incentive for anyone to get into astrophotography when there is a chance to get your work published and viewed by many people across the world..

Happy Christmas

Ray