Magazine Posts

Please let me know,
if I do my part
and if my words
touch your heart.
I hope they do,
for it is my pleasure
to entertain you.

This love, for doing the writing craft,
is what I enjoy. Is that daft?
I hope it is not, it's very true,
for writing words, is what I do.
Some words are good, some are bad,
others are happy and then there is sad.
No matter the mood, nor the time
I will always try to make them rhyme.

A path between good and evil,
winds through the conscious mind.
A direction, taken in error
may be a detriment to mankind.
What evil lies, in the hearts of men,
who care not about the lives they see,
resulting in a lack of common decency?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar Coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. Solar coronae are also sometimes evident. The featured composite image was captured a few days before the close Great Conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter last month. In the foreground, the Italian village of Pieve di Cadore is visible in front of the Sfornioi Mountains. New: APOD is now available in Taiwanese from National Central University

Photo by Alessandra Masi

This is the time of the year
I like least
for I see the new growth and
the Frost Beast
rears it's ugly head to freeze
and to feast
on the new growth of my plants
tender at least.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What powers this unusual nebula? CTB-1 is the expanding gas shell that was left when a massive star toward the constellation of Cassiopeia exploded about 10,000 years ago. The star likely detonated when it ran out of elements, near its core, that could create stabilizing pressure with nuclear fusion. The resulting supernova remnant, nicknamed the Medulla Nebula for its brain-like shape, still glows in visible light by the heat generated by its collision with confining interstellar gas. Why the nebula also glows in X-ray light, though, remains a mystery. One hypothesis holds that an energetic pulsar was co-created that powers the nebula with a fast outwardly moving wind. Following this lead, a pulsar has recently been found in radio waves that appears to have been expelled by the supernova explosion at over 1000 kilometers per second. Although the Medulla Nebula appears as large as a full moon, it is so faint that it took 130-hours of exposure with two small telescopes in New Mexico, USA, to create the featured image.

Photo by Russell Croman

Cooking meat on the grill is one of life’s top-tier satisfactions. Not only is it fun and absorbing to do, the results, if you get them right, enhance your day, your week........... Continue reading 

No more the evening napping,
or the crowds of people clapping,
as I left my home on the shore,
of the clear water of Lake Lenore.
(to be continued, perhaps)

"In the Blue Hour, French illustrator and author Isabelle Simler offers a stunning joint celebration of these uncommon blue creatures and the common blue world they inhabit, the Pale Blue Dot we share." ........ Read the full article on Brain Pickings

Photo credit: Calob Photography

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The jets emanating from Centaurus A are over a million light years long. These jets of streaming plasma, expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image of Cen A. Exactly how the central black hole expels infalling matter remains unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets inflate large radio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years. If energized by a passing gas cloud, the radio bubbles can even light up again after billions of years. X-ray light is depicted in the featured composite image in blue, while microwave light is colored orange. The base of the jet in radio light shows details of the innermost light year of the central jet.

How one man went from attending President Barack Obama’s inauguration to dying in the mob protesting Donald Trump’s election loss during the Capitol insurrection.............. Read the full article at ProPublica

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame. Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. Scheduled for launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is optimized for exploring the Universe at infrared wavelengths.