Magazine Posts

The Sun
in the morning,
pushes the fog
back to the clouds,
which ride slightly
above the ground.

A simple thought
will be the start,
as I replay, in my mind
the affairs of the heart.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How did a round star create this square nebula? No one is quite sure. The round star, known as MWC 922 and possibly part of a multiple star system, appears at the center of the Red Square Nebula. The featured image combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in California, and the Keck-2 Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A leading progenitor hypothesis for the square nebula is that the central star or stars somehow expelled cones of gas during a late developmental stage. For MWC 922, these cones happen to incorporate nearly right angles and be visible from the sides. Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run along the cone walls. Researchers speculate that the cones viewed from another angle would appear similar to the gigantic rings of supernova 1987A, possibly indicating that a star in MWC 922 might one day itself explode in a similar supernova.

Photo by Peter TuthillSydney U.Cornell U.

Where is the creation,
where is the art?
What happens to the process,
when my thoughts fall apart?

If the creative part
of my mind starts to fail,
it will be the mental
equivalent of going to jail.

I need to remember
and write of a happier time,
where I write down words,
which will always rhyme.

Tell me your wishes,
beautiful granddaughter of mine
and I will provide riches,
so you can enjoy,
a freedom of living,
in a place which you love,
amongst all your family
and those who you love.

I care about you
and these past several months.
We haven't met yet, I see.
There are many likes on a days
writings. It's ok with me,
but my EGO may disagree.
If you like what I write,
or if you don't, your opinion
matters to me.
Comment if you can
or if you don't,
my World won't end,
no matter the words,
for this is my craft,
crude as it is.
No Poet Laureate in my jeans,
certainly not in my past,
but writing for you,
has been a supreme blast.
Thank you my friends.
Thanks to you all.
Be not afraid in this life,
please continue to stand tall.

Sip from the nectar;
fruit from the vine.
Savor every moment,
while tasting all the wine.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

To the eye, this cosmic composition nicely balances the Bubble Nebula at the right with open star cluster M52. The pair would be lopsided on other scales, though. Embedded in a complex of interstellar dust and gas and blown by the winds from a single, massive O-type star, the Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is a mere 10 light-years wide. On the other hand, M52 is a rich open cluster of around a thousand stars. The cluster is about 25 light-years across. Seen toward the northern boundary of Cassiopeia, distance estimates for the Bubble Nebula and associated cloud complex are around 11,000 light-years, while star cluster M52 lies nearly 5,000 light-years away. The wide telescopic field of view spans about 1.5 degrees on the sky or three times the apparent size of a full Moon.

Photo by Lorand Fenyes

Aquatint, an etching technique, was invented in Amsterdam around 1650 by the printmaker Jan van de Velde IV. The technique  was all but forgotten until the eighteen century when recipes for its used were published and its techniques were improved by a number of artists. An exhibition at the National Gallery of Art will trace the technique’s development through Europe, starting in the late 1700s. Read more
Image: Stoke Hall , Derbyshire, England by Cartwright, Thomas - Public Domain

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This year an outburst of Perseid meteors surprised skywatchers. The reliable meteor shower's peak was predicted for the night of August 12/13. But persistent visual observers in North America were deluged with a startling Perseid shower outburst a day later, with reports of multiple meteors per minute and sometimes per second in the early hours of August 14. The shower radiant is high in a dark night sky in this composite image. It painstakingly registers the trails of 282 Perseids captured during the stunning outburst activity between 0650 UT (02:50am EDT) and 0900 UT (05:00am EDT) on August 14 from Westmeath Lookout, Ontario. Of course the annual Perseid meteor shower is associated with planet Earth's passage through dusty debris from periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The 2021 outburst could have been caused by an unanticipated encounter with the Perseid Filament, a denser ribbon of dust inside the broader debris zone.

Photo by Pierre Martin