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Beneath the Sea
of Burning Glass,
lived a man
with checkered past.
What say you,
old, troubled man?
You'll never be
this way again.
Bring your prayers
and high resolve,
to find those
who give a trust,
since they are,
'tis no doubt
for you know not,
what Life's about.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

On May 31 tens of parallel meteor streaks were recorded in this 8 degree wide field of view of planet Earth's limb from space. The image is one of a series of 5 minute long observations by the orbiting Yangwang-1 space telescope. It was captured at 03:43 UT, near the peak of the Tau Herculid meteor shower. As predicted, the meteor shower was an active one this year, caused as Earth swept through a relatively dense stream of debris from disintegrating Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, but was lacking bright meteors. Nearly all of the Tau Herculid meteors in the Yangwang-1 image are too faint to be detected by groundbased instruments. But on that date patient earthbound skywatchers under clear skies still enjoyed a memorable showing of the Tau Herculids.

Photo by Zhuoxiao Wang

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

With this creative astro-collaboration you can follow the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy as it bridges northern and southern hemisphere skies. To construct the expansive composite nightscape, skies over Observatorio El Sauce in Chile (top) were imaged on the same date but 6 hours later than the skies over the Saint-Veran observatory in the French Alps. The 6 hour time-lag allowed Earth's rotation to align the Milky Way above domes at the two sites. All exposures were made with similar cameras and lenses mounted on simple tripods. A faint greenish airglow is visible in the dark Chilean sky that also features the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds near the observatory dome. In the French Alps light pollution is apparent, but the distant Andromeda Galaxy can still be spotted near the horizon in the northern night. On planet Earth the two observatories are separated by about 10,000 kilometers.

Photo by Maxime Oudoux

Cat lovers do all sorts of crazy things for their cats. They talk to them, dress them up in costumes, install 7-foot-tall cat towers in the living room, even put them in a backpack and take them for a hike. Can you believe the things people will do for their furry companions.
I would never do anything so ridiculous as these with our three cats. No, instead, I do something much more mature. I make up silly songs and serenade them, like any normal adult. They must enjoy my songs because they never seem to complain. Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

On May 27 Venus rose as the morning star, near the waning crescent Moon in a predawn sky already full of planets. It was close on the sky to the Moon's crescent and a conjunction of the second an third brightest celestial beacons were enjoyed by skygazers around the world. But seen from locations along a track through southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean the Moon actually passed in front of Venus in a lunar occultation. In this animated gif the 75 percent illuminated disk of Venus approaches and just begins to disappear behind the sunlit southwestern lunar limb. The telescopic frames used to construct it were captured from Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean around 4:50am local time, with the Moon and Venus very close to the eastern horizon. At the time Venus was over 180 million kilometers from Reunion Island, compared to a lunar distance of a mere 400 thousand kilometers or so. About 50 minutes later Venus emerged from behind the Moon.

Photo by Quentin Gineys

Puzzles puzzle me,
no matter the type,
to answer questions,
to fill in the blanks.
We do all of this
with no gratitude or thanks.

No more.
No mas.
No need
Work with me, not.
Do not exceed.
Why do we try,
If there isn't a need?

~A light and healthy dinner that comes together quickly, Read the recipe

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It wasn't the storm of the century -- but it was a night to remember. Last night was the peak of the Tau Herculids meteor shower, a usually modest dribble of occasional meteors originating from the disintegrating Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. This year, calculations showed that the Earth might be passing through a particularly dense stream of comet debris -- at best creating a storm of bright meteors streaking out from the constellation of Hercules. What actually happened fell short of a meteor storm, but could be called a decent meteor shower. Featured here is a composite image taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA accumulated over 2.5 hours very late on May 30. Over that time, 19 Tau Herculids meteors were captured, along with 4 unrelated meteors. (Can you find them?) In the near foreground is the Bok 2.3-meter Telescope with the 4.0-meter Mayall Telescope just behind it. Next year, the annual Tau Herculids are expected to return to its normal low rate, with the next active night forecast for 2049.

Photo by Jianwei LyuSteward Obs., U. Arizona

In the Bavarian village where I was raised, guns are a part of life. Mass shootings are not...Read more