Simply breath-taking: The Milky Way floats over a serene lake in an image which took two years to get just right

By Eddie Wrenn

Occasionally an image comes along which is simply breath-taking.
This, we humbly submit, is one of them, an image of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way universe, stretching in an immense band across the skies and giving us just the tiniest glimpse of the vastness of our universe around us.
The image was taken by astrophotographer Luc Perrot on the French island of Réunion, to the East of Madagascar, who reports that he waited two years to get the perfect light conditions.
But it was worth it.

The image was taken earlier this month at the Piton de l’Eau on Reunion Island.
In the foreground, surrounded by bushes and trees, lies a water-filled volcanic crater serenely reflecting starlight.
A careful inspection near the image center will locate Piton des Neiges, the highest peak on th

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2165043/Simply-breathtaking-The-Milky-Way-floats-serene-lake-image-took-years-just-right.html#ixzz1ywFEq0Xk

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Cream of the crop circles: New markings snake 350ft across farmer’s field as ‘mysterious’ summer tradition continues

• Venus ‘sunfish’ is 350ft long
• Appeared overnight in field near Alton Barnes White Horse chalk figure in Wiltshire
• Transit of Venus began last week and will continue until the beginning of July
• Wiltshire known as capital of crop circles

By Amy Oliver
It appeared overnight, a mysterious snake-like crop circle weaving across a wheat field in Wiltshire.
The 350ft-long installation is marked out of a field near the 200-year-old Alton Barnes White Horse chalk figure.
Dubbed a Venus ‘sunfish’, the circle is thought to capture the ‘transit of Venus’, an astronomical phenomenon which began last week and will continue until the beginning of July.

The crop circle shows Venus’ period of visibility as a morning star, where it rises with the sun, and tracks its ascension in the sky following the sun through its rising and setting stages.
The ancient Mayans spent much of their time recording the path of Venus, splitting its 584-day cycle of the planet into four distinct parts.

Amateur photographer, Matthew Williams, said: ‘I was quite excited to find it in the morning as I hadn’t known there was anything there the night before.
‘It must have appeared in the hours of darkness. It’s very spooky.’

Stargazers from across the globe have been gathering to watch the rare astronomical spectacle.
From the U.S. and UK to South Korea, people around the world have been turning their attention to the daytime sky to make sure they caught Venus passing directly between the sun and Earth – a transit that won’t occur again for another 105 years.
The transit of Venus happens in pairs eight years apart – but then with more than a century between cycles.
During the pass, Venus appears as a small, dark round spot moving across the face of the sun, like a bug on a dinner plate.

Crop circles continue to fascinate enthusiasts, but whether they’re made by aliens or people with GPS devices still remains a subject of debate for some.
The geometric patterns range in size from a few inches to hundreds of feet across and have been as large as 200,000sq ft.
Stalks are bent down around an inch above the ground before the plants are laid in precise patterns.

In recent years, a booming tourist trade has developed. From Belgium, Holland, America, Norway and Australia, crop-circle spotters or croppies come in their thousands — each with their own theory, each rushing to a new site as soon as it is reported.
Wiltshire is known as the capital of crop circles but why the county plays host to the vast majority these patterns remains a mystery.
Each year during Spring and Summer a new batch of the markings appear and continue to delight the country.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165517/Crop-circles-capture-transit-Venus-phenomenon-planet-passes-Earth-Sun.html#ixzz1z2gS4rYe