A Nice Surprise

One of my photos has gone viral. Sort of.

I took this photo back in June where there was a nice conjunction of the crescent Moon, Venus, and Mercury. I posted it on my Flickr site and it got about a hundred views.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/srahn/9013096528/

But a couple of days ago a Reddit user named tombh photo-shopped the Andromeda Galaxy into the photo in such a way that showed the galaxy if it were brighter. Here is that version.

http://i.imgur.com/EpuhHJa.png

There was an interesting discussion on Reddit about it here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1u0dxs/andromedas_actual_size_if_it_was_brighter/

I thought the interest in the photo had died down, but I was very pleased to see that Phillip Plait had seen the photo and even wrote a nice article on his blog and credited me.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and_andromeda_relative_size_in_the_sky.html

I can only say that I am glad my photo was used for this very interesting discussion. I used Creative Commons licensing on my images, and this is one of the reasons I believe in Creative Commons. The photo now has over 3,000 views and I am grateful for the credit that was given both on Reddit and by Dr. Plait.