Astronomy Tuesday

This is the romantically named NGC 660, a so-called polar ring galaxy 20 million light years away in Pisces. This is a rare galaxy type, and astronomers aren't sure how they happen. There's a substantial ring of stars, gas, and a variety of space dust in orbit around the galaxy, but not in the same plane as the galactic disk, which is what you'd expect. Instead, as you can see in the picture, the galaxy tilts one way, and the ring another, almost perpendicular to its parent.

This image is from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea, which seems appropriate because that pink ring reminds me of a rope of flowers, swinging in rhythm while the stars dance a hula. (I also like the variety of galaxies in the background, including the one in the bottom right that appears to be balancing on its edge.)

Image Credit: Gemini Observatory, AURA, Travis Rector (Univ. Alaska Anchorage)

Sunday bird blogging

A male downy woodpecker.

This is one of the most common birds in Central Park (apart from pigeons and house sparrows, of course) and you see them all year round. I love the great big feet on those tiny bodies, perfect for hopping around vertical tree trunks without losing one's grip, but I'm used to them, and don't even bother to take pictures unless they're posing in plain view like this fellow.

But what's commonplace to me can be an astonishment to a stranger. When I was in the park a few weeks ago, a woman from England excitedly showed me a photo of a bird on her phone and asked if I knew what it was. I told her that it was a male cardinal, and I pointed out a female that was hopping around not far from where we were standing.

She was surprised when I told her they were fairly common. “But it's so beautiful!" she said. And they are. A reminder that we are lucky to live in a world that has bright red birds poking around in it, color even in the darkest days of winter.

Saturday geometries

Well, sort of. There are angles enough here, against that washed out sky, but it's not the first thing you would notice about this picture. I want to call it “The Lighting of the Lamps", which makes me think of “Prelude":

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

That's T.S. Eliot, always good for a chuckle and a bit of cheer when you could really use it. Many years ago, I went to a reading by Stephen Spender, and he talked about Eliot, and said that the voice in his poems was the way he actually talked. He imitated him saying, “I don't like bread and butter, and jam's too much trouble," in a deep, ponderous drawl, and suddenly idle tea table chatter sounded like something out of “The Waste Land."

Urban poetry

A slice of the many levels of infrastructure making up elevated tracks in Chicago.

Astronomy Tuesday

I am always fascinated by photos of the Earth from space, but I especially love this one, with the battered body of our moon in the foreground and our beautiful planet just a blue wink in the distance.

The Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 spacecraft took the picture last week.

Image Credit: Chinese National Space Administration, Xinhuanet

The Cream

;

Many people linked to videos of Cream after the recent death of Jack Bruce, but this was my favorite. I like the sign identifying “The Cream" of course, and the way there's no real attempt to pretend that all of the vocals are live, with Mr. Bruce singing one part and then, apparently randomly, another.

Mostly I like the way Eric Clapton looks like a stand-in for Michael Cera in Juno. He's so adorably dorky.

Sunday bird blogging

This is the female purple finch. With that spotted breast she could be any of a number of sparrows or other female birds.

Birders identify her by the white stripes on her face and the notch in her tail. And, in my case, by the very useful fact that she was hanging out with male purple finches.

Saturday reflections

Some seasonal reds, on a day when it's pouring rain out of pitch black skies in New York and there's very little color to be found.

Urban poetry

I'm still paying for carrying a camera with a big lens to the park last weekend, so here's a picture I took with my phone yesterday while I was sitting in traffic in a cab on Seventh Avenue.

I'm obsessed with reflections, as anyone who reads this blog knows, and also with headlights and taillights on cars, so here's a nice abstract image combining both.

Astronomy Tuesday

There was a partial solar eclipse last week; sadly, it wasn't visible from the East Coast.  This photo was taken from Santa Cruz, and shows the giant sunspot group with the romantic name AR 2192.

If I had a life list, if I believed in such things, seeing a total solar eclipse would be near the top of the list. There's one visible from Northern Europe in March and I almost signed up for a tour to see it. (Of course, right now I can barely make it to the corner so the idea of going anywhere outside of Midtown Manhattan is comical.)

If I can't make it to the eclipse, I'll just have to wait for the eclipse to come to me. There's one in 2017, visible in most of the United States.

Image Credit and Copyright: Michael Bolte (UCSC)

Sunday bird blogging

October is the most beautiful month in New York, but I admit I haven't been paying much attention, and I hadn't been to the park in months.

Many months ago, I broke my foot. It got better, then worse, then better. Months of limping took a toll on my knees. I'm not supposed to take NSAID's because of the bleeding risk, but I get away with an Advil now and then. But after three days of trudging up and down the hills of Seattle I was in serious pain and I bought some Aleve before going to Alaska.

I'd probably do it again -- every step in Alaska was worth it -- but I've been paying for it, getting by on two-thirds of a normal blood supply while undergoing the familiar endless tests and treatments for anemia. So that's why blogging has been sporadic; just going to work and doing the minimum necessary chores has taken all of the energy I have.

It was perfect October in the park this morning. Although I couldn't walk far, and the light wasn't ideal for photos, I was rewarded for the effort with a rare pair of purple finches hanging out by the feeders. Here's the male.

Geometries

Because every building has to have a back door -- how else are the staff going to sneak out for smokes?

Here's the Frank Gehry version, from EMP in Seattle.