Cullera beach snap is NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day

AN ' ASTRONOMY Picture of the Day' ( APOD) chosen by NASA was taken by a local man on Cullera beach – and has now gone global.

The US- based space agency picks a photo daily for its apod. nasa. gov site, and it has just been revealed that the one for Monday, September 21 was taken by Toni Sendra in the Ribera Baixa seaside town.

It shows a silhouette of the yacht Sláinte against the rising sun, which makes the latter look like a giant, fiery Omega symbol.

Within just two hours of going live, Sr Sendra's shot had already snapped up 1,300 ' likes' and had been shared 250 times.

It then went viral after NASA uploaded it onto its ' Sky' Facebook page.

Owner of the yacht Sláinte, Alejandro Grau, is delighted.

“This is a real first for

NASA, to publish a photograph of our yacht by our friend Toni Sendra, since very few Spanish photographers have managed to get their pictures on this huge organisation's website,” says Sr Grau.

Toni is equally enthusiastic.

“It's like winning Oscar,” he admits.

“One of the greatest aspirations of any astronomy photographer is to achieve this, because of the worldwide fame it attracts.”

His is far from being an opportunist shot – the picture took days of careful planning.

Toni gave the Sláinte crew the exact coordinates at which they needed to be at precisely 07.41 on Saturday, September 12, and was in constant contact by phone with Alejandro Grau as the sun came up. an