NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This cosmic vista stretches almost 20 degrees from top to bottom, across the dusty constellation Taurus. It begins at the Pleiades and ends at the Hyades, two star clusters recognized since antiquity in Earth's night sky. At top, the compact Pleiades star cluster is about 400 light-years away. The lovely grouping of young cluster stars shine through dusty clouds that scatter blue starlight. At bottom, the V-shaped Hyades cluster looks more spread out in comparison and lies much closer, 150 light-years away. The Hyades cluster stars seem anchored by bright Aldebaran, a red giant star with a yellowish appearance. But Aldebaran actually lies only 65 light-years distant and just by chance along the line of sight to the Hyades cluster. Faint and darkly obscuring dust clouds found near the edge of the Taurus Molecular Cloud are also evident throughout the celestial scene. The wide field of view includes the dark nebula Barnard 22 at left with youthful star T Tauri and Hind's variable nebula just above Aldebaran in the frame.

Photo by Amir H. Abolfath

Into the sunset, he did flee,
as if there was something chasing he.
Where to go? Where could he hide?
For he needed shelter, for this ride.
Nervous was he, this lonely man,
running away without a plan.
What must I do to start over,
for I am now very much sober.
I'm just a poor man, all alone,
out on the street, not even a phone.
There was a time when I'd share,
a place with Rats, under the stair.
I did not choose to be this way,
but hard times came on that day.
I'd get a job, using my finesse
but the employer needs an address.
Housing is not something I can pursue,
so a PO Box will have to do.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo and appears as only a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight in this remarkably detailed galaxy portrait, a telescopic view that spans an area about the angular size of a full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past a smaller satellite galaxy (NGC 6744A) at the lower right. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Photo by Zhuokai Liu

Always interesting when entering
the house and forgetting
to turn off the alarm.
As the alarm was squawking at me,
I was yelling at the alarm.
Probably something like who
the heck are your parents, et al.
The alarm stopped it's siren noise,
after I entered the pass code,
and received a call from a lovely
person at the Alarm Company, that
wanted to know if we were OK.
After I explained my memory lapse,
she asked for my password, which I supplied.
A very polite, Customer Service Representative
who was patient and understanding of
this old, forgetful person.

The wand like scepter
in his hand
was made for him
and by his command.
A simple thrust,
a break of wrist
and your thoughts,
tremble and twist.
Who are you?
was often said.
His response was,
"I am Death,
you are dead."

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It may appear, at first, like the Galaxy is producing the lightning, but really it's the Earth. The featured nighttime landscape was taken from a southern tip of the Italian Island of Sardinia in early June. The foreground rocks and shrubs are near the famous Capo Spartivento Lighthouse, and the camera is pointed south toward Algeria in Africa. In the distance, across the Mediterranean Sea, a thunderstorm is threatening, with several electric lightning strokes caught together during this 25-second wide-angle exposure. Much farther in the distance, strewn about the sky, are hundreds of stars in the neighborhood of our Sun in the Milky Way Galaxy. Farthest away, and slanting down from the upper left, are billions of stars that together compose the central band of our Milky Way. Free Lecture: APOD editor to speak in NYC on January 3

Photo by Ivan Pedretti

I remember the first time
I was at your door.
My heart beat was racing,
As I wanted more.
More love from the one
That fate had given me.
One to spend my whole life
Is what would be.

At 1:30 AM on November 20th, I stood in a puddle, not quite sure if I’d peed myself or my water broke. The nurse on Overlake Hospital’s Labor & Delivery line had me lean forward a cough. The puddle grew bigger. It was go-time.

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The time spent in this place
has not been divine,
but has been one of love
that our spirits entwine.
A place of love and hate
with friends, yours and mine
are but a lost memory now
best viewed with a glass of wine.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the type of nebula our Sun will produce when nuclear fusion stops in its core. M27 is one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky, and can be seen toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars. It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science. Even today, many things remain mysterious about bipolar planetary nebula like M27, including the physical mechanism that expels a low-mass star's gaseous outer-envelope, leaving an X-ray hot white dwarf. APOD across world languages: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Beijing), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Montenegrin, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian

Photo by Steve Mazlin

A fair wind blows in
from the sea.
The smell of life's death,
comes wafting to me.
What is the connection,
when there is an urge,
to return to the water,
to hear the waves surge?
An urge with much eland
to come back to the place
where life began.

My thoughts of my friends
and great co-workers, like you
that spurs me along,
for if you only knew,
the love that has carried me through
was the love from many not just a few.

The cold snap we had
was completely bad
for these trees,
now have dead leaves.

Without rancor
without sin,
oh what a mess
you are now in.

Walking along the bank
of a small stream.
Ice crystals have formed
at the edge of the rushing
current. Remarkable
ice with multi-patterns
over rock and soil.
A lonely Crow squawks
up ahead. Unusual as
the Crows are in pairs.
A low hanging fog,
silences the sounds of
of moving water. All is
quiet now. Where are you
Crow?

The thickest fog.
The sound of a dog,
barking in the muted light.
Early morning hours;
others in bed.
The silence eerie.
No echo of noise.
No matter what I
say or do,
my thoughts keep
coming back to you.
You, the one with
sparkling eyes,
were certainly a prize,
for your elegance
of your smile,
will last for another mile.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's that black dot crossing the Sun? The planet Mercury. Mercury usually passes over or under the Sun, as seen from Earth, but last month the Solar System's innermost planet appeared to go just about straight across the middle. Although witnessed by planet admirers across the globe, a particularly clear view was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in Earth orbit. The featured video was captured by the SDO's HMI instrument in a broad range of visible light, and compresses the 5 1/2 hour transit into about 13 seconds. The background Sun was unusually quiet -- even for being near Solar Minimum -- and showed no sunspots. The next solar transit by Mercury will occur in 2032.

Walking back from the Naneum Creek
through waist high grass.
It was a warm, sunny day and
fishing hadn't been successful.
I had seen a dead Rattlesnake,
about 3 feet long, next to the creek bed,
so I had that thought in my mind.
I decided that I would walk out through
the grassy field, toward the road
where the truck was parked.
As I started to take a step, looking down,
I thought I saw a snake. I swear to this day
that I bounced into the air and cleared
that spot with my feet hardly touching the ground.
My heart was racing and I felt relieved as
I got to the road, entered the truck
and drove back to Ellensburg.

Silvered rays of light
dance across the surface
of the small pond.
Dew drenched Cattails
jutting from the shore.
Green Milfoil lays on the surface,
solid except for the trail of a duck.

A small Fungi, perhaps,
growing from the space
on our deck.