Recognize this celestial object? Just kidding: it's the booster separation of the Delta 4 which lifted off 5 minutes ago.

Another simple image of asteroid (433) Eros, with a shorter focal length setting than http://twitpic.com/8890i4 yesterday: tonight it was only 90 mm 35-mm eq., 10 seconds at f/3.4, with Rho and even Alpha Leonis also in the frame (the arrow marks the asteroid next to two 7.7 and 7.9 mag. stars). Shows that practically every compact camera should *also* be able to follow Eros through its perigee; http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/A-Rare-Flyby-of-Asteroid-Eros-137273448.html has good finder charts.

Finally, a wide-angle field around Orion, now at 800 ISO and with a 35-mm eq. fl. of 25 mm (slightly cropped), 30 seconds at f/2.8. With a bright meteor or a fine comet in the field, it would actually be a nice picture ,,,

The main part of Orion in 20 seconds at a 35-mm eq. fl. of 75 mm f/3.3 at ISO 1600 - also tried lower ISO settings for less noise and shorter exposures for less trailing, but it just doesn't look as nice.

Belt & sword of Orion in 6 seconds (259 mm 35-mm eq. focal length f/4 @ 1600 ISO) with a Lumix DMC-FZ48 on a tripod - now the outer reaches of the Orion Nebula come out, too. White balance was set for (terrestrial) sunlight, lacking a better idea. :-)

The crappiest picture of the Orion Nebula you've ever seen - but it was taken without a telescope and without a tracking mount, with the same simple camera as used for http://twitpic.com/88kikv (now just 2.5 seconds exposure time and an equivalent focal length of 735 mm f/5.2 at 1600 ISO). Heavily cropped, of course.

Searching the limit of a 'bridge camera' (i.e. one w/built-in superzoom) for sky photography: this Pleiades picture reaches 10.0 mag. Taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ48 at a 35-mm equivalent focal length of 514 mm, 6 seconds with f/4.7 at ISO 1600. Part of a series: strangely, the longer the trails, the clearer the faintest stars come out. Is this because I'm *below* the linear response of the CCD?

Just caught myself asteroid (433) Eros - with a simple camera on a tripod!!! It's the streak on the far right; the 3 bright stars are 7.1, 7.5 and 8.1 mag, the 2 faint ones in the lower left 9.3 and 9.5 mag. 4 seconds at f/4.4 and ISO 1600 with a 35-mm eq. fl. of 460 mm (Panasonic DMC-FZ48). So http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/getting-involved/eros-and-the-solar-parallax in within reach!

Just one image that says it all (kind of) about the #spacekoelsch2 #spacetweetup success in Cologne tonight; many more pictures from the evening and esp. the radio astronomy-heavy day before coming up shortly ...

Since I don't see a press release online re. another #AAS219 press conference item, here's the key picture: a non-observation of SN 2011fe in M101 by the PIRATE telescope on Mallorca drastically restricts the size of the exploding (primary) object to a mere 2% of the solar diameter (vast improvement over Nugent & al. in Nature last month). So it *must* have been a degenerate object, i.e. a white dwarf. (J. Bloom)

Final #AAS219 presser presentation was on the NuSTAR mission - http://www.nustar.caltech.edu - launching this year: here the resolution of its high-energy telescope is compared to INTEGRAL's.

Astronomers answering to the Universe: the panel of the first #AAS219 press conference in Q&A, with Rick Feinberg in charge.

Conclusion slide from the 1st #AAS219 press conference: You can determine the dark matter distribution of a galaxy by watching the effects the gravity of a companion causes - a method complementary to using gravitational lensing.

The key players in unraveling the history of the Universe as compiled by S. Perlmutter in his final #Hawking70 slide.

So is science going to save us ... or to destroy us? Interesting juxtaposition of tweets in my timeline today. :-)

Final impression of the Herbede fireworks tonight (they're still at it) - fog allowed only wide-angle shots this time.

Another experimental picture of tonight's New Year's fireworks in Witten-Herbede, Germany.

Happy New Year (in the Central European time)! Fireworks over Witten-Herbede, Germany.

The last we saw of the Soyuz with the Globalstar satellites after lift-off 10 minutes ago in Baikonur - then it vanished in low clouds for good. Telemetry says all's well so far.

The Soyuz crewmembers, now in orbit, have already learned that notebook pages behave quite differently in µg - perhaps tablet computers next time? :-)