All right, well, it's 00:07 according to my laptop, and I just can't wait.
First things first - today's Object of the Day just has to be a merger, for reasons you'll see in a minute. Three spirals doing an amazing dance, posted in various places . . .
588017990693683257And now onto our main programme . . . (drum roll!)
This morning I got a letter from Liz (elizabeth) alerting me to a video
modestly buried in Cosmic Trainwrecks, made by SMacB back in early September. Wondering vaguely how in the Universe I could have failed to spot such a thing, given that I try to read all the posts on this forum, I downloaded it. I was absolutely stunned. It is the most beautiful, breathtaking delight I have so far seen - which is saying something on a forum like this!
It is a slideshow of mergers, set to some lovely music. It is a large file and may take your computer a while to download, and it is also 38 minutes long - but believe it or not, that is not too long at all. Watch it, in little bits if that's what suits you, and smile. Honestly, after a minute or two, I really felt quite emotional.
I wrote to SMacB immediately to apologise for not having spotted it before - he was very gracious and told me he's made another one! I haven't seen much of that, but it looks at least as stunning, a general introduction (with our Galactic Alphabet on the first slide
- much longer though, 1 hour 33 minutes, which will take me quite a while to get through!
Mergers videoLonger videoHuge thanks to SMacB for taking such an immense amount of trouble and paying Galaxy Zoo this immeasurable compliment. And thank you very much indeed to Liz, too, for her diligence, without which we would have remained ignorant.
