Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), a few hours ago. I would rate this the best comet I have seen visually since Hale-Bopp in 1997.

34112 And no special camera mode used, Wat? Nope. Almost all of my photography is done in manual mode shooting.  34112 and one of the things that was mentioned was the toxicity of the metals used that produce those brilliant colors (lead was mentioned, and I believe mercury also?)   There should no...

Neighbors setting off their July 4th fireworks down below, which mostly end up exploding directly in my view. No complaints from me. :) https://i.imgur.com/vblrK13.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Q4doxwq.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XlHZGDT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PGQGYR7.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LOJ24Ax.jpg

Hunting for crystal vugs in a new spot in the central Cascades, with one splendid view:

How the Virus Won An excellent New York Times data visualization of how the epidemic spread through the US, and the missteps we made along the way.  (A free account may be required to view, all that's needed is a valid email.) 33926 Looks like rather than a second wave, there's a second rise going ...

A-L-E-X wrote:

Qr Bbpost Wow was this a 4K timelapse?

Nah, just some frames from the DSLR. Which is 4K resolution (4272x2848), but I cropped the images down quite a bit.
I haven't seen nacreous clouds yet. I'm not sure if they're as common at my location, but I keep an eye out for them, too.

More that I managed to catch this morning, but by then it was just very thin wisps.  An animation to show their weird movement (about 8 minutes in real time). https://i.imgur.com/hGnx9lT.gif I would have captured more to get a longer animation, but in the middle of it I was distracted by something u...

33978 Did you have a chance yet to read the piece on Jupiter? Yes, it emphasizes how gravitational influence and scattering by gas giants works in both directions. We would not have the asteroid belt if not for Jupiter, and we wouldn't have had the Late Heavy Bombardment if not for the gas giant mi...

33975 About the moon isn't there more to it than just directly shielding the earth, couldn't it also affect the path of incoming objects and change the trajectory of their motion? Not by enough to meaningfully change our result. Yes, it deflects paths, but not by very much, and a path may just as e...

33972 Nice capture, Wat!  Are these clouds the result of meteoric dust Thanks!  I'll have more to share in a moment, as well. Are they the result of meteor dust? The dust may act as a condensation site just like it does in the lower atmosphere, but the clouds themselves are made up of small crystal...

33970 Still every little bit counts. If you stood in a field in front of a group of archers, and I handed you a shield and told you it will block less than 1% of their arrows, I do not believe you would be impressed by the protection. By the time your shield would catch a couple of arrows, you woul...

My first sighting of noctilucents here this year, and third sighting in all. The display was nearing its end by the time I noticed them, but might go out again later this morning to see if they're still around.

33940 If there really is dark energy (the one that accelerates the expansion of the universe) shouldn't there be exotic matter too? We don't really understand what dark energy is , but it's a name we give to whatever causes the accelerating expansion that we observe. So it's like a placeholder name...

33925 In addition our large moon shielded us from a ton of impactors that could have rendered our planet uninhabitable. Not really, see  last part of post here.   Right now the Moon blocks  0.0005% of asteroids that would hit Earth.  Even in the very distant past when it was much closer to Earth, t...