NASA Announces 1235 Planet Candidates

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of them are Earth-like. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1235. 170 stars show evidence of multiple planetary candidates 

Source:  http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=98

LPOD: 20/Mar/2011 - Supermoonrise

LPOD: 20/Mar/2011

I am glad to see that my image sequence of the supermoonrise was selected to be today's LPOD (with Damian Peach's image too). It's "my" second LPOD (this was the first). The aparent diameter of this (almost) perigee moon (only 1h05min apart) was about 33.5'! Very impressive!

Here it is the permanet link to LPOD of 20/Mar/2011:
http://lpod.wikispaces.com/March+20%2C+2011


PS: Check  also Supermoon Photo Gallery from APOD's forum!

Biggest Moon in almost 20 years!

This animated (click in the pictures to start the animation) GIFs shows the "biggest moonrise" in almost 20 years! The moon had reached the perigee just 1h05min before I took the pictures. Prime focus in 8" f/5 reflector and Canon 1000D.

 

Color

B&W

Color inverted

BW inverted

This video from NASA explains the phenomenon: