Too bad.

It seems that Mark and Ruben are now in a band called "The Freeks" with a guy from Monster Magnet and another one from Kyuss.  Might be good....

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Some Images:

prior to the change
it is essential to
shift into neutral

disagreeable thoughts
must be cleared out
absent presence
of all sour signals

turn off any
receptors receiving
incoming influences
of any kind

it is important
not to carry any
hidden nuggets
of negativity
affecting the
outcome

sleeping soundly
a catnap quiet
soothed the
transition

as water floats
and flows
so the mind began
to drift
in a sea
of vagueness

particles parting
feelings floating
memories meshed
forever changed
* * * * * * * *
poefusion Friday 5: essential, disagreeable, absent, sour, catnap
photo: Cosmic Epic Unfolds in Infrared, originally uploaded by NASAImageoftheday, flickr

Here is a picture of my rocket boy CJ. He loves space and anything to do with rockets, planets and spaceships. His most recent obsession is the cartoon Zula Patrol. As far as cartoons go it's very good. Each episode focuses on a different planet or science topic, like magnetism or the hydrologic/or water cycle (I can just hear the groans). But really it's very cute. Yesterday we watched an episode about how stars are formed from a nebula. l could go on, but won't because I need to get to the real topic at hand...

You see, it's about my blog.  I know you think people are stopping by just to read my riveting blog posts, but mostly they come by and read about the Rocket Birthday Party and the Rocket Invitations that I posted back in March. I had 15 visits yesterday just for the Rocket Birthday Party post. I know that's not a lot to some bloggers, but for my tiny blog it's a lot! I'm thinking of renaming my blog "Rocket Birthday Party" and putting the words "rocket" and "birthday" in the title of each post. What do you think? Does this happen to other bloggers? Do you ever feel like a "one-post blog"?

One of the images that I managed to capture the last time I had my scope out (month +) is of the Swan nebula a.k.a the Omega nebula or M17.The scope was performing nicely and easily found this mag +6.0 neb located in the constellation Sagittarius.

NASA has released an image this week to commemorate the Hubble Space Telescope's 100,000 orbit. This nebula, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope on August 10, is about 170,000 light-years away.

"The image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head 'pillars of creation,' and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars. The high-energy radiation blazing out from clusters of hot young stars is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. Another young cluster may be hidden beneath a circle of brilliant blue gas. In this approximately 100-light-year-wide fantasy-like landscape, dark towers of dust rise above a glowing wall of gases on the surface of the molecular cloud. The seahorse-shaped pillar at lower, right is approximately 20 light-years long, roughly four times the distance between our sun and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. The region is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing star-formation regions and their evolution. Dwarf galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies."

You might also want to check out the The First Universe of Galaxies Map.

Tony Hallas

Explanation:

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across, blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. This beautiful telescopic view combines a composite color image with narrow band data that isolates light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the wind-blown nebula. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. The nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years away.

Red glow. This image shows the upper 2.5 light-years of the Cone Nebula, a pillar of gas and dust located 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. Young stars at the top of the picture emit radiation, eroding the nebula over millions of years. Ultraviolet light around the pillar causes the hydrogen gas to glow, creating a reddish color.

Check out more images of the universe taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is located 350 miles above the Earth's surface and has a clear view of the cosmos.

Where are we? Who are we? What's going on out there?

Photo: By Carolyn Clink (2005)

Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan: You are probably wondering; "Wait, isn't that a movie shown on Channel 4 starring Anna Maxwell Martin (Doctor Who, Becoming Jane) and Naomie Harris (28 Days Later, Pirates of the Caribbean, Miami Vice) from the producers of The Last King of Scotland ? Yes, and if you liked this laid-back fun TV movie directed by Benjamin Ross, chances are you are going to like the original more-in-depth novel. As the Guardian put it; "Catch-22 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...an electrifying debut...surreal, raucous, infuriating and very funny."

Author preferred text version of American Gods by Neil Gaiman: I don't think I need to say much about this one. It's good, it's grand and you've probably read it. Winner of the HUGO, NEBULA, BRAM STOKER, SFX and LOCUS awards, has written this novel of large themes with rich imagination. If you fell in loved with the novel, you might want to try the author's preferred text. This version of American Gods is about twelve thousand words longer than the on that won all the awards, and it's the version of which Gaiman is the most proud. Indulge yourself with this untrimmed version of American Gods this summer with a glass of long island iced tea!

fell into a nebula

the sky was white light

From Adam Hobden, images of an ISS flyby and a Jupiter image:

From David Warrington, another ISS flyby shot and some deep sky images (testing out the new piggyback mount on the observatory telescope):

What's particularly peculiar is that even the cosmic microwave background radiation, the "leftover" energy from the Big Bang, is warmer than this nebula.  The drop in temperature is due to the fact that the nebula's gas is being blown out from a very small source (the star at its center) and then rapidly expanding.  This corresponds to a drop in temperature in the same way that blowing on the back of your hand with with your lips pursed feels colder than simply breathing on the back of your hands with an open mouth.

What an interesting universe we live in.  This is just one of many reasons why I enjoy astronomy.

La noche empezó disfrutando de un precioso crepúsculo con la Luna cerca de Régulo, Saturno y Marte (al día siguiente formaban una alineación perfecta). Montado el equipo, cenamos mientras se hacía completamente de noche. Y entonces empecé a soñar...

El olvido de dos trípodes por parte de dos compañeros, me permitió disfrutar del dobson de 25 cm y apuntar a donde quisiera con el. Teniendo mi estupendo filtro OIII en la mano y el cisne en el cénit, la elección estaba clara y sin alternativas (hasta satisfecha mi curiosidad).

Desde que vi por primera vez el velo del cisne (Ngc 6960, NGC 6992, NGC 6995) (ver, no intuir una mancha poco contrastada. ¡Gracias Ángel!) no he podido dejar de pensar en aquella imagen tan fotográfica, tan repleta de detalles, tan rica en general... jamás pensé que con mis propios ojos pudiera ver lo mismo que lo que algunos consiguen tras mucho trabajo fotográfico (jijijiji), y desde luego quería poder repetir esa experiencia y disfrutarla al máximo, recrearme en el tamaño, en los detalles, en los contrastes, en la estructura espacial de la nube de gas... así que N22T5 al canto, filtro enroscado, apunto a 52 Cyg, y... menos mal que sólo son 25 cm. Si la imagen que me estaba ofreciendo (algo inferior en detalle, y con menos estrellas a causa del filtro que lo mostrado en este enlace) este pequeño telescopio hacía que literalmente me pusiera a temblar y me tuviera que sentar antes de caerme al suelo, no me quiero ni imaginar dónde estaría ahora si tuviera mas apertura. Llamé a los compañeros para que observaran. Reacciones similares, estupefacción, satisfacción. Yo seguí aproximadamente una hora más mirando aquella pequeña preciosidad, antes de darme una vuelta por los otros telescopios y charlar.

En esa vuelta, tras observar un poco algunas cosas que se estaban mirando, y sintiendo la perturbación en la fuerza causada por un telescopio solitario, me volví al 25 cm para darme un paseo por la norteamérica-pelícano.

Creo que una vez me enseñaron esta nebulosa, y no la identificaba porque estaba dentro de ella. He leido que suele pasar, tienes que irte a un borde para tener contraste. También la he visto, a simple vista, empleando el filtro OIII. Esta vez no me hizo falta irme a un borde, era tal el grado de nebulosidad que, o bien era vaho (raro con esa noche), o estaba inmerso en la nube. Mi asombro no cesó en todo el tiempo que permanecí dando vueltas por el conjunto que forman la Norteamérica (NGC 7000) y la Pelícano (IC 5070 - IC 5067). No puedo describir mucho de ambas (y alguna nebulosa más que se veía junto a éstas). Simplemente no pude pararme a ver detalles porque tenía que compartir la visión. Además era incapaz de procesar más información, estaba saturado tras estar observando objetos como pocas veces relatan los más veteranos.

Por supuesto que vi más cosas, en las 4 horas y algo que estuve observando estos pocos objetos me di alguna vueltecilla por el resto de telescopios para ver NGC 6205, NGC 224, NGC 221, NGC 205... NGC 206 no llegué a verlo aunque dejé el reto (sencillo) para el resto de compañeros. También una planetaria que Isra nos enseñó, en un cúmulo. No tengo datos, tendré que buscar en las crónicas de otros compañeros.

Poco antes de la última sorpresa, no podía faltar la visita al centro galáctico. Javier me llevó, con los filtros, a ver los objetos de la zona. La Laguna, Omega, Trífida... Empecemos por la Omega. El pato nada por la superficie del río, perturbando con las olas la tranquila superficie que la brisa no alcanza a agitar, sólo la cresta del mismo. La visión es sugerente para que la imaginación vuele y enmarque la nebulosa en un contexto onírico. Se la merece, sin duda. La nebulosa de la Laguna, con su sobrecogedora sensación de tamaño, y sus extraños ornamentos, no dejaba más que una sensación de pequeñez aquí abajo. La Trífida es la que, de las tres, menor sensación de nada dejaba. Los tres lóbulos se diferenciaban bastante bien, siendo más interesante observar las zonas oscuras que los separan. En éstos se apreciaba que no eran simplemente entrantes oscuros, había algo más.

Para acabar, antes de irme a la cama, Júpiter. No podía dejar de echarle un vistazo, no lo he visto en lo que va de año en condiciones. Y vaya si lo vi. Nunca he visto tanto detalle en este planeta. Las bandas no eran simples bandas de diferente color en el planeta. Ofrecían una riqueza cromática, unos detalles en las fronteras, un sinfín de detalles que pocas veces he visto. Al menos, que haya podido disfrutar a mi aire y recrearme. Por supuesto, es la primera vez que veía los satélites jovianos más allá de brillantes puntos, esta vez se percibía que eran discos y no puntos. Madre del amor hermoso, era espectacular la visión de conjunto que se lograba. Un satélite estaba entrando o saliendo de delante del planeta, y se veía perfectamente que la sombra era más que un punto.

Tras 23 horas despierto, creo que merecía ir a la cama un rato y ser un poco más feliz (ya nunca sin ti, me dejaste vulnerable a la vida).

Próximamente, la segunda parte, la visita a la piscina, y ¡más fotos del sapo!