The Best Astronomy Pictures of

2005-2006*

Robert Nemiroff
What is APOD?
Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Web site started at NASA in 1995
• Written & edited w/ Jerry Bonnell (USRA/NASA)
• Features a different astronomy image every day
• Mirror sites now translate APOD into most major
languages daily
• Hypertext is “best link”, leverages the full web
• Archive is encyclopedic and searchable
– Need an astronomy image? Good chance APOD’s got it!
Top Five NASA Images
of All Time*

*Before 2005 and

Yes, it’s subjective!
STS-1: First Shuttle Launch
A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence
M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs
Earth Rise
Top Five APOD Images
of all Time*

*Before 2005 and

Yes, it’s again subjective!
Inside the Eagle Nebula
The Big Corona
M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
Looking Back on an Eclipsed Earth
Earth at Night
Image Credits

• Top NASA: All NASA (no joke!)

• Top APOD:
– Eagle Nebula: © AURA, NOAO, NSF
– Andromeda Galaxy: © Robert Gendler
– Big Corona: Fred Espenak
– Eclipsed Earth: Mir 27 Crew, CNES
– Earth at Night: DMSP Satellites
Just Wow Images
V838 Mon: Echoes from the Edge
WMAP Resolves the Universe
Top APOD
Images of
2005-2006*
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Titan Landscape
Eight Kilometers Above Titan
Saturn's Iapetus: Moon with a Strange Surface
Persistent Saturnian Auroras
The Fox Fur Nebula
To Fly Free in Space
NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide
Solar Eclipse in View
The Fairy of Eagle Nebula
M51: Cosmic Whirlpool
Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane
The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
Particle Sizes in Saturn's Rings
Sculpting the South Pillar
Titan's Cryovolcano
Tornado and Rainbow
Over Kansas
Sunset Over Gusev Crater
The Giant Radio Lobes of Fornax A
Ring Around Fomalhaut
Thirteen Seconds After Impact
A Nearby Supernova in M51
Water Ice in a Martian Crater
Solar System Object Larger than Pluto Discovered
A Shuttle Back Flip at the Space Station
The International Space Station from Orbit
Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae from SALT
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
A Quadruple Sky Over Great Salt Lake
Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters
Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Localized
A Soyuz Spacecraft Approaches the Space Station
Possible Pluto Moons
The Missing Craters of Asteroid Itokawa
SN 1006: Supernova Remnant in X-Rays
Infrared Helix
Stardust Capsule
Returns to Earth
New Horizons Launches to Pluto
The N44 Superbubble
Wisps Surrounding the Horsehead Nebula
An Unusually Smooth Surface on Saturn's Telesto
Unexpected Comet Pojmanski Now Visible
Earth's Shrinking Antarctic Ice Sheet
Super-Earths May Circle Other Stars
Inflating the Universe
 Image Credits and Copyrights
available on the APOD website
The best images from the first six years of APOD can be found here:
Postscripts

• The Astronomy Picture of the Day website

is available online at http://apod.nasa.gov/.

• The Universe: 365 Days book is available

at most bookstores including the AMNH
museum bookstore.