today's APOD - what the?

[troypiggo]

How they go from an awesome pic like yesterday's to some artist's sketch of some fantasy planet crap? It's Astronomy Picture of the Day, not Lord of the Rings! (No offense to LOTR, I like it too)

[/rant]

[casstony]

They're just improving the contrast so yesterdays image looks that much better :).

I don't mind todays painting - it's nice to imagine the details that we can't see yet.

[erick]

I guess that is meant to be liquid in the foreground. Given the proximity of that red giant, I expect it isn't water! :D Don't know about the "clouds" then. I also thought modelling suggests that it is difficult for planets to have stable orbits in a binary star system?

Nice evocative drawing, however. :)

[Octane]

Yeah, the terragen stuff all looks the same after a while.

There are one or two artists I know who aim for realism in their pieces. The rest are the same two planets/moons with unrealistic lighting conditions with meteors colliding, etc. :lol:

But, I suppose that is art, eh.

Regards,
Humayun

[troypiggo]

Don't get me wrong, they're talented and I'm just jealous that I can't do it :)

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Yeah it have me a big chuckle too -- and then a frown. Seriously, there are so many flaws in this piece of "space art", it's hard to know where to begin.

Off the top of my head:

(1) Stars in the "daytime" sky -- the red-giant "parent" star is above the local horizon yet the sky is in twilight mode and there are "night-time" stars in the sky.

(2) This planet has an atmosphere dense enough to support thick clouds in the sky and has liquid on the ground (I'll assume it's not Mercury or some form of liquid metal. Why?? Look at the waves!). Considering the parent star apparently subtends more than 5, more likely 10-15 degrees of sky, this planet would be so hot no liquid could survive on the surface and with the intense heat (in the order of 100s of times more than here on Earth), there and it certainly would be manifestly unlikely to have an appreciable atmosphere that close to a red giant.

(3) The opposing crescents in the sky are shown no further apart than the diameter of the giant. They would not show crescents at all let alone thick ones that oppose each other. The orientations of the crescents is also wrong considering the angle of illumination from the red giant. Why are they white?

(4) The clouds are dark in a daytime sky (unless they are carbon clouds perhaps).

(5) The uneven nature of the surface-brightness of the red giant would not be readily visible to the naked eye. The colour is probably too "red" as well.

(6) The material streaming off the red giant and crossing to the white dwarf would be invisible at optical wavelengths and certainly not visible in a daytime sky.

(7) The accretion disc wouldn't be visible in a daytime sky and certainly not as big as shown relative to the red giant star. The detail (concentric spirals) in the accretion disc wouldn't be visible.

(8) The white dwarf is much too far away from the red-giant to be gravitationally "tractoring" material off it's surface in the first place -- there is no way the red giant has a roche-lobe so small considering most white dwarfs are about 0.4-0.6 solar-masses and ones over 1 solar mass are rare. The white dwarf is (at very best) at least 1 red-giant diameter away from the surface of the giant. The material on the surface of the red giant is closer to the centre of mass of the giant than the white dwarf. why is it streaming away? Maybe push gravity is a work here.;) (Sorry Alex :) )

(9) The red giant is much, much too round -- if it is loosing material being stripped off by a white dwarf, the white dwarf would be making it somewhat ovoid.

If I look hard, there are probably other problems.

In my opinion only, not worthy of APOD -- almost complete rubbish. APOD should be beautiful, perhaps occasionally "arty" science not pseudo-science art. Perhaps art here should also be placed in inverted commas too.

Big thumbs down from me!


Best,

Les D

[Jen]

:lol::lol: yeah me too :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Les,

Don't take it too seriously, mate. The Internet is full of this astro-terragen stuff.

Just think of it as fantasy.

Regards,
Humayun

[multiweb]

I think it looks awesome. :thumbsup: I really like this fantasy stuff. It's not the first time they posted that kind of artwork. It beats the yellow flat they had as "the color of the universe" though. Hands down. :lol:

[Octane]

lol, the beige flat frame was a tribute to Ritchie Benaud.

Regards,
Humayun

[ngcles]

Hi Humayun & All,



Yep, fair call. but ...

My point is, given that this image/representation/interpretation has little basis in fact and actually misrepresents the apparent science it depicts, it does not belong on APOD which is about the beauty of science, and not ... (urgh ...) this crapology!

It has a place -- without a doubt, (and I know this genre is very popular), but it isn't on APOD by a long-shot.

Of course we could have that old "beauty is truth and therefore truth is beauty" discussion here but ...

As I said earlier: APOD should be beautiful, perhaps occasionally "arty" science, not pseudo-science art (represented as a truthful depiction of science).

:):)

Best,

Les D

[hilb]

Yuk! Sorry, but I want Astronomy Picture of the Day not Fantasy Drawing of the Whatever. That stuff belongs somewhere else...

Cheers,
HilB...:rolleyes:

[troypiggo]

Well it looks like they've taken my advice, got their you-know-what together, and today's is an actual Astronomy Picture of the Day. You are all very welcome. :D

[erick]

Well done Troy. Amazing power you have!

[troypiggo]

No worries Eric. Any massive corporations or government bodies you'd like me to sway for you? They don't need to be Australian, either. :)

[Paul Haese]

Once upon a time I tried entering my Jupiter and Io image to APOD and it never made the grade apparently, but this garbage does. It says a lot about the credibility of this astronomy picture of the Day concept. The biege image was nonsense too.

If your image makes it to APOD I reckon it is more sheer luck than a credit to your skills in my opinion:shrug:.

[troypiggo]

I'd have to see your Jupiter/Io pick up against the beige one to make a comment on credibility and which one is better.




Hahahaha. Sorry, couldn't resist. Forgive me.

[Octane]

At tonight's Canberra Astronomical Society meeting, Professor McLelland gave a presentation on gravity waves. One of the images in his slideshow presentation was by Matt Garlick. The "space artist" whose image made it to APOD.

Regards,
Humayun