Astronomy, in short, rocks

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has graced the interwebs with his top ten astronomy pictures of 2006. They are phenomenal, as is to be expected from this eye-popping science, and Phil's descriptions, if anything, are just as spectacular.

My particular favourite sits at number five in the list - a shot from the earth's surface of the ISS and the Space Shuttle Atlantis passing in front of the sun. The photographer's site explains more, but also makes it abundantly clear I shouldn't post the image here.

Snippet of choice: The shot was taken at a shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second, at 50 ISO. My own Olympus E300 DSLR claims to be capable of 1/4000th, and doesn't even have 50 ISO as an option, and of course I don't have a 150mm telescope to use as a lens... but we can dream.

One more reason not to go in there

[found via Pharyngula]

Yes, that's a 4.5m Pacific Giant Octopus. A phenomenal sight to behold I have no doubt, But I can't help thinking of It Came From Beneath the Sea. Nature is a wonderful thing but if it lives in the sea and is big enough/poisonous enough/dangerous enough to do me some serious harm, you can keep it. Really.

In other news: Stingray! Stingray! (tadada dada!)

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