Slashdot Mirror
Astronaut Photographs Comet Lovejoy ... From Space
astroengine writes "The sungrazing comet that survived the plunge deep into the solar corona, only to escape after swinging behind the sun last week, has posed for an extraordinary photograph. Space station commander Dan Burbank caught Comet Lovejoy and its impressive tail hanging above the Earth's horizon as it begins its long journey back into deep space."
That's tails plural. one for dust, one for gas ;)
or it didn't happen.
but did they travel through time?
That's an amazing photo. And just seeing the stars in the background makes me really jealous (I'm in a suburb of a very large city, so I can barely see the major constellations even). Light Pollution for the loss.
- Toast
We have some astronomers in our club who are now able to take some pretty astounding photographs, thanks to dropping prices and advances in image capture technology. My best, so far was a comet at sunset, nothing like this though.
Don't scroll to the bottom of the page, unless you want to think even less of the site, however. Geez.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm usually amazed with the pictures amateur astronomers can take. The equipment that is needed in many cases is astounding too, especially in regards to cost. In this case the camera and optics are probably very reasonable. But the cost of the camera mount, observatory and shipping are several orders of magnitude greater.
This reminds me of the old adage:
"Dog bites man" is not newsworthy. "Man bites dog" is.
Not to say that the pic (which I haven't seen) isn't worthy of slashdot, just that the headline made me go "Well, duh.".
IMO, the headline would have been better without the "..."
That leads me to a less mainstream (I think) idea I have about headlines, though: The word astronaut is kind of redundant in this headline, isn't it? Are any other people in space? It would be more informative if it told something else than the obvious about the person, like, for example "brunette photographs comet from space" or "vegetarian", "father of two" or whatever.
I thought of this because it reminds me of recently seeing a few headlines like "Thieves break in to ..." and the like, when a less redundant and also more descriptive and fair headline might have been "Lifelong sufferers of systemic discrimination break in to...".
Then, when some reckless relatively richer people basejump illegally from a tall building, "Adventurers jump from ...", not "Criminals jump from ..." or "Endangerers of public safety jump from..."
This reminds me tangentially of that song, that sloppily translates into something like the following:
"
They have the money and the power
and the guns and the batons
and the poison that flows from the printing presses
and the justice system and the prisons.
You, worker, only have your unarmed hands
They fear your hands, worker, when you clench them into a fist
"
et cetera
So, all this does of course bring to mind that episode of the Simpsons, you know, where grandpa tells the story about having an onion tied to his belt.
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Isn't that 343 Guilty Spark landing on installation 04?
It just needed to refuel.