# Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 17, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798 "2003-05-17T00:14:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/1 "2003-05-17T00:14:08Z")
Probably posted before but it’s a very cool site. [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html) ---
**Author:** ![LolaCocaCola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@LolaCocaCola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaCocaCola)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/2 "2003-05-17T00:16:26Z")
Tres groovy. ---
**Author:** ![it\_sjustme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/da6949/32.png) [@it\_sjustme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/it_sjustme)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/3 "2003-05-17T07:32:19Z")
Awesome site! Have you seen this one? It’s a night view of Earth taken from the Space Station on a perfect night, with no obscuring atmospheric conditions. [![](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg) ](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/4 "2003-05-17T08:16:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by it’sjustme \* > Have you seen this one? It’s a night view of Earth taken from the Space Station on a perfect night, with no obscuring atmospheric > conditions. Now, you don’t really believe that do you? or is the world really _flat_ after all? (That graphic is a composition based on thousands of different photographs. The earth looks nothing like that.) ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/5 "2003-05-17T09:18:40Z")
That picture wouldn’t have been taken on _a_ perfect night, but on a number of them. > [@](#): > > The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites. Quote from the site. Still very cool. Any picture including my country definitely is. 😉 Thanks for posting the site’s link, **Reeder** and **it’sjustme**. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/6 "2003-05-17T11:06:43Z")
[A true photo of our planet taken from space. View of the Earth seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon taken 12/07/72](http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/pao/AS17/10075945.jpg) The night composition is much more than just a collage of photographs and is more of an artistic interpretation because the data is distorted both in perspective and in color. it comes nowhere close to being anything one could consider a “photograph”. ---
**Author:** ![Comfortably\_Numb\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/41988e/32.png) [@Comfortably\_Numb\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comfortably_Numb_1)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/7 "2003-05-17T11:38:07Z")
Also, with that night-time view of earth… Is the entire Earth engulfed by night at once? I think not. ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/8 "2003-05-17T11:39:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > **Now, you don’t really believe that do you? or is the world really _flat_ after all?** Not to mention that it would have to have been dark _everywhere on Earth_ at the time the “photo” was taken – which, I suppose, would only be possible if the world is flat. Anyway, speaking of digital composites, there’s also a [daytime](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0203/earthtruecolor_nasa_big.jpg) version of the entire planet, and a cool one that shows the night/day [terminator](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0303/europesunset_livingearth_big.jpg) crossing Europe and North Africa. As to the original photo that sparked this discussion, I cringe at the light pollution every time I see it. ---
**Author:** ![it\_sjustme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/da6949/32.png) [@it\_sjustme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/it_sjustme)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/9 "2003-05-17T19:40:02Z")
Thanks \*\* sailor\*\* and **Ice Wolf**. Obviously I didn’t put enough thought into what I wrote when describing that picture!:smack: …and my IRL friends wonder why I won’t tell them my user name!😃 ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/10 "2003-05-17T20:07:01Z")
That night-time composte is terrific. I can make out where I lived in Idaho. The total population in a ten mile area was about 10,000. Pretty nice definition there. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-archive/175798/11 "2003-05-17T21:08:49Z")
I really don’t think that night sky picture is a composite of photographs. It’s a map based on data from the DMSP satellite, which I do not believe has photographic capabilities. They used an instrument called the Operation Linescan System (OLS). Reference: [Cinzano, et al., MNRAS 2001](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2001MNRAS.328..689C&db_key=AST&high=3ec24ad14b01004). As beautiful as the picture is, this paper is really trying to make a point about light pollution. From the abstract: > [@](#): > > About two-thirds of the World population and 99 per cent of the population in the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) and European Union live in areas where the night sky is above the threshold set for polluted status. Assuming average eye functionality, about one-fifth of the World population, more than two-thirds of the United States population and more than one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way. Finally, about one-tenth of the World population, more than 40 per cent of the United States population and one sixth of the European Union population no longer view the heavens with the eye adapted to night vision, because of the sky brightness.