Astronomy Tuesday

This magnificent emission nebula has the unromantic name of IC 1396, but that dark structure just below the center does have the more whimsical, and descriptive, name of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula.

Image Credit and Copyright: César Blanco González

Sunday bird blogging

“Oh, just hanging out watching the kids -- what are you up to?”

The tropical weather makes makes me feel like I'm back in India, so here's a pair of teenage storks babysitting in Keoladeo National Park.

Those backward knee joints just look so uncomfortable to me, but I have to admit they're much more practical for sitting on the ground than ours.

Saturday reflections

From the archives:

This was taken in Portland, a few years ago, and for some reason never processed. I love the red truck.

Urban poetry

This “public parklet” is a small covered pavilion on one of the main streets in Newport. No one was actually sitting there though -- maybe it just looked too perfect to use -- despite shady seating and the Newport Creamery nearby. This would be a perfect place to sit and enjoy your ice cream.

Astronomy Tuesday

Sometimes I think the universe is like an enormous Christmas tree, minus the tree: globes and stars and twinkling lights in every color we can imagine (and many that our eyes can't even see.)

Omega Centauri is the largest of the approximately 200 known globular clusters that hover around the halo of our Milky Way. It may actually be the remnants of a small galaxy that merged with ours.

Image Credit and Copyright: Mike O'Day

Sunday bird blogging

My pictures of goldfinches are never that great, but that bright yellow feels appropriate for the thick of summer.

Providential architecture

Some of the very cool buildings, mostly around the Brown campus (those are the main gates in the first picture.)

Saturday reflections

It was blazing hot the day we walked around Providence, and most of the interesting sites are at the top of very steep hills, so air-conditioned art galleries were a welcome break.

Here's some of the art reflected in the very glossy floors at the Providence Art Club.

First Baptist

I've seen many churches called the First Baptist, but this one in Providence is the first First Baptist, founded by Roger Williams in 1638.

They didn't get around to building an actual church until 1775, and the result is the largest surviving wooden structure from Colonial America, according to the blurb on my tourist map.

The prominent spire is modeled after the one on St Martin in the Fields in London.

I've been queuing up Providence photos to post over the next week or two. It was probably my last weekend off until I go away on vacation next month, and I want to savor it as long as I can.

Urban poetry

One of the quaint Colonial communication devices in Newport.

Astronomy Tuesday

Here's two for the price of one -- a composite of pictures from two different telescopes, showing Messier 20, the Trifid Nebula, in the center of the image, and Messier 21, the star cluster in the upper left.

Image Credit and Copyright: Martin Pugh

Random things I saw in Newport

The International Tennis Hall of Fame, which occupies a large chunk of downtown Newport, and a book in a shop window that made us laugh.

If you can't read the title, it's How to Split Wood, Shuck an Oyster, and Master Other Simple Pleasures. Somehow I doubt that anyone in the market for those crystal candleholders next to it is really interested in learning how to split wood.