First, the much-talked-about Navy kiss, from Dec. 21.

Fire Controlman 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, left, assigned to the USS Oak Hill, kisses her fiancée, Fire Controlman 3rd Class Citlalic Snell.

For some reason, that photo reminds me of this one.

The iconic V-J Day kiss in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt

This couple (actually, two strangers in Times Square) were caught up in the moment following the surrender of Japan on Aug. 14, 1945. The sailor saw a cute nurse, and spontaneously kissed her. (Wiki entry) Eisenstaedt and another photog were lucky enough to capture the moment.

Granted, the circumstances were different, but both couples were celebrating a victory in some sense.

The Moon near the end of totality.

JISHOU, HUNAN — I had to Photoshop this one a bit to clean it up. I mistakenly had the Tamron’s vibration control on, and the resulting movement smeared the Moon’s image, but left the star images intact.

This is a 10-second exposure with the lens zoomed to 230 mm, taken near the end of totality around 11:00 pm local time. Everything else is the same: Nikon D60 on tripod, Tamron 70-300 zoom lens, f5.6, ASA 200.

The stars surrounding the Moon are fainter members of Taurus: from top left going clockwise, 13 Tau/HIP23900A, iota Tau/HIP23497, HIP23589, 15 Tau/HIP23883 (closest apparently to Moon here), and L Tau/HIP 23871. Iota Tau is a member of the Hyades star cluster, whose V-shape outlines the horns of the bull. The stars of the Hyades are about 150-160 light-years away from Earth.

How do I know which star is which? It’s not an encyclopedic memory or fancy astronomy equipment. I used Stellarium, a free planetarium application for your computer. Here’s a screen shot of Stellarium showing the same view on my desktop.

Screenshot of Stellarium view of Moon at 11:00 pm Dec 10, 2001

Stellarium will give you details about any object you click on.

Interestingly enough, 15 Tau, which in this photo appears closest to the Moon, is actually the farthest star of the five from us. It’s 1032 light-years away. That’s some old light there.

Alnath (β Tau) and the eclipsed Moon -1 sec exposure

JISHOU, HUNAN — I caught the total lunar eclipse about halfway through totality. I didn’t do all the good stuff, like wait for the equipment to cool to ambient temperature (0°C here), because I almost forgot to go out. So, out of 25 shots I got three halfway decent ones. The focus seems to be a bit off, I fear.

The three images here are of the Moon toward the end of totality. You can just barely see it brighten on the lower right edge as it leaves the Earth’s shadow. The star to the left is Alnath (β Tauri), the second brightest star in Taurus. Alnath is a bluish-white B-class star, about 700 times brighter than the Sun, 4.5 times heavier and 5 times bigger. It’s 131 light-years away.

I used a tripod-mounted Nikon D60 with a 70-300 Tamron zoom lens at 70 mm, f5.6, ASA 200. The three exposures are 1.0 sec (above), 1.6 sec and 2.5 sec (below).

Alnath (β Tau) and eclipsed Moon - 1.6 sec exposure

Alnath (β Tau) and eclipsed Moon - 2.6 sec exposure

Totality ended around 11:00 pm here.

This is the overall winner, a mosaic of Jupiter with two of its moons, Io (left) and Ganymede. The details on all three images in this composite are amazing, and that’s what impressed the judges, too. Damien Peach used a Celestron 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a Point Grey Flea3 CCD camera to capture these images.

The overall winner of the 2011 Astronomy Photographer contest, by D. Peach

I want to highlight this one at left, too, because it shows a feature of our solar system not commonly seen.

The zodiacal light by Harley Grady

Harley Grady took this image with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II DSLR camera with a 16-35mm lens, which shows what you can do with fairly simple equipment. All you need is a good tripod, or some other sturdy support, clear skies and some patience. Long exposure times bring out details our naked eyes cannot see.

You can also see the winners, picked from nearly 800 entries, at the Sky at Night website.

Supernova 2010lt (detail) Photo by Joseph Brimacombe

The detail shows the “fuzziness” typical of a galaxy, in this case UGC 3378, which is 240 million light-years away from us. The supernova is within the fuzziness (and the same distance from Earth), so it’s part of the galaxy.

Here’s a news report of the discovery I found online.

The shrinking polar ice cap 2000-2010

Seriously, though, the melting of all that ice means it’s been getting warmer, on average, up North. That rise in temperatures affects wildlife, and also global sea levels. The melted ice has to go somewhere, after all.

Conditions are similar in the Antarctic.

So, while it’s hard to believe with all the snow we’ve been getting lately, the Earth is getting gradually warmer. Remember, weather is not climate.

Palm tree. Snow. I'm so confused!

I know this is small potatoes compared to what some of you guys in the USA have had. Even so, the inter-city buses are grounded, because of icy roads. Meanwhile, the taxi drivers are on strike, protesting a outrageously high boost in their monthly licensing fees. The only things running are the city buses and the trains.

Sort of like snow in Kentucky.