The semi-annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society was held in Austin recently, and many space images were shared. Dr. Phil Plait was not at the meeting, so the other astronomers sent him pictures, which he put into a gallery at Bad Astronomy. Each has a link to more information about the picture. The image shown here is a high-energy gamma-ray map from NASA’s Fermi telescope. Shiny! Link

(Image credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration)

Redditor Vidzilla composed a story about the end of the world using the internet: website screenshots, photographs, social networking, generators, and news sites -you know, the way internet surfers get their information. The saga begins on January 1, 2012 and ends on the 14th (redditors who followed the story had to wait for each installment). You should click on each day in order, and enlarge the images to follow the progress, but beware that the images become increasingly graphic and may be disturbing to some people. There are also some links in the images for further reading. Each day’s reddit link also has a discussion in the comments. Link -via Metafilter

Last week, Phil Plait posted his year-end gallery of the best pictures taken from space. Now you can see his picks for the best pictures of deep space, really deep, like these galaxies that are 300 million light years away.

Because they’re big, sometimes galaxies get close together. Too close. Close enough that their gravity can affect each other, drawing out long arms of gas and stars, distorting each other into weird and beautiful shapes. It happens a lot.

Such is Arp 273, seen here in a Hubble image taken to celebrate the observatory’s 20th anniversary in space. These two big galaxies passed each other in the recent past (like, a few million years ago). Both were probably normal enough before the encounter, but are now twisted and asymmetric.

See the other 23 images at Bad Astronomy. Link

(Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team)

The most detailed moon map yet has been constructed from images by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Technicians from Arizona State University compiled the map which shows elevation changes as small as 100 meters.

The near-global topographic map was constructed from 69,000 WAC stereo models and covers the latitude range 79°S to 79°N, 98.2% of the entire lunar surface. Due to persistent shadows near the poles it is not possible to create a complete stereo based map at the highest latitudes. However, another instrument onboard LRO called LOLA excels at mapping topography at the poles. Since LOLA ranges to the surface with its own lasers, and the LRO orbits converge at the poles, a very high resolution topographic model is possible, and can be used to fill in the WAC “hole at the pole.” The WAC topography was produced by LROC team members at the German Aerospace Center.

Read more about the map at NASA. Link -via Laughing Squid

Halloween is coming, and while people are out trick or treating or enjoying a costume party, the Universe will continue to go about its business.

The business of DEATH, that is. Black holes will continue to tear apart stars and gorge themselves on the tasty, gooey insides; galaxies will erupt with high-energy radiation, blasting out killer rays for hundreds of thousands of light years; giant clouds of gas will collapse, form stars, and promptly have their interiors eaten out from within.

Bad Astronomy Blog has a gallery of creepy astronomy pictures that appear to have sprung from our nightmares, but are actually things that exist in our universe. The picture here is of the flaming skull of Perseus: actually Perseus A, a huge galaxy that blasts out x-rays. Link -Thanks, Phil!

I don’t know about you guys, but I love nighttime photography. While I may not have the skills to do it myself, photographers who are interested in improving their night shots will probably love the video tips over at Shutter Salt. For the rest of us though, the incredible images are enough to enjoy.

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I don’t know about you guys, but I love photos that incorporate long exposure techniques, although I don’t have nearly enough patience to ever try them on my own. That being said, WebUrbanist has an awesome collection of some seriously stunning long exposure images that are definitely worth a click.

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Even the Wicked Witch is no match for the Scarecrow!

Amazon sells the Contech Electronics CRO101 Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler. The normal purpose of such a device is to scare pets and wildlife (and maybe kids) away from your lawn or garden. However, many folks have their own ideas of how it should be used, as you’ll see in the seven pages of customer-submitted images. Link -via b3ta

The Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites are sending back images of Earth in false color. Not only are they useful to scientists and cartographers, but they can also be called works of art. The image here shows phytoplankton swirling around the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Yes, I thought of Van Gogh’s Starry Night when I saw this as well as you did. See 22 such images at Wired. Link

We know of nearly 500 other planets orbiting other stars. However, the methods of finding these exoplanets  are indirect. We measure their affect on their parent stars, but we didn’t directly see the planets themselves… until 2005, when the first image of an actual world orbiting another star was announced.

As of October 2010, only 7 such planets have been imaged, but we’ll soon have more. This gallery shows the best of these images, including the first alien solar system to have its picture taken.

The picture shown here is the star HR 8799 with three planets revolving around it! See a much larger image in the gallery. Link -Thanks, Phil!

(Image credit: Gemini Observatory)

Can you imagine finding a pile of photographs taken by a CBS staff member in the 1960s? And in those photographs at a thrift store you find president Kennedy and other celebrities? These rare candid John F. Kennedy images are from a 1960′s CBS Special with JFK "After Two Years: A Conversation With The President",  found in a pile of photos at a Tampa, Florida thrift store.

We snatched up as many as we could afford, including a photo of Bob Denver (Gilligan of Gilligan’s Island) and Marlene Dietrich in her older years with Ed Katz and Lou Dorfman. The shots of JFK however are the stars of the show and are in pristine condition.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by missdestructo.

Chris Peterson went to Montana’s Glacier National Park for 100 days starting in May. Every day he took at least one amazing photo and posted it on his site. The result is amazing.

Link Via The Big Picture, Image by Chris Peterson

Nasa hopes the mix of real data and fun will also inspire the planetary scientists of tomorrow.

“We really need the next generation of explorers,” says Michelle Viotti, from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees Mars missions.

“And we’re also accomplishing something important for Nasa. There’s so much data coming back from Mars. Having a wider crowd look at the data, classify it and help understand its meaning is very important.”

Link to story. Link to game. -via Metafilter

The holiday shopping season is quickly descending upon us, which means this year’s more popular toys and consumer electronics are soon to become in increasingly high-demand. In recent memory, the Sony Playstation III, Beanie Babies, and of course, the Tickle-Me-Elmo have generated a considerable amount of hype – quickly selling out, and then establishing a re-sale market. But have you ever wondered what the “it toys” have been throughout the decades? We have; and as a result, we decided to compile a time-line which illustrates the top toys from the last 50 years. Here they are, the most popular Christmas toys since 1960.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by jadalan.

Photography can be such a serious art, but taken too seriously it becomes formal and boring – at least for folks like Ivar Gravlejs. With 78 exhaustive tips he ranges from humorous to obvious, dead-pan to just plain stupid. Still, some of us would do well to remember the basics when taking pictures – or will at least get a laugh out of his twisted spin on conventional photo tips.

Link via Gawno

NASA’s Earth Observatory has some amazing satellite photos of the deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest over the past 8 years. At the link, click on the years posted below the picture to see the progression.

The state of Rondônia in western Brazil is one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon. In the past three decades, clearing and degradation of the state’s original 208,000 square kilometers of forest (about 51.4 million acres, an area slightly smaller than the state of Kansas) has been rapid: 4,200 square kilometers cleared by 1978; 30,000 by 1988; and 53,300 by 1998. By 2003, an estimated 67,764 square kilometers of rainforest—an area larger than the state of West Virginia—had been cleared.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by liquidanbar.

Long exposure photos are so cool because they view things in ways your eyes never could. Digital Photography School has a great collection of long exposure images and the elapsed time it took for each image to come out. For some great images, I highly recommend visiting the site and looking at all of them.

Link Via MentalFloss

Grandma’s Graphics has a neat collection of vintage art and public domain images perfect for that children’s book you’ve always wanted to write.

From Harry Clarke to 1890′s storybooks, if you’re looking for unique images or clipart for use on your web pages or in other design or craft projects you’ve come to the right place. There’s a treasury here at Grandma’s Graphics that you probably won’t find anywhere else online. Some of these graphics are quite large and take time to load, but be patient, they’re worth the wait.

Link – via boingboing

WebEcoist constantly has amazing photographs displayed on their site and this post of 15 Environmental Photographers is certainly no exception. From macros to weather to amazing animal pics, if you like photography, you’ll be happy you clicked on this link.