Urban poetry

Fair's fair.

Women also have unpromising storefront spa options in the West 50's.

Astronomy Tuesday

There are always different ways of looking at something.

Here's the sun, one of the very cool gallery of images at the Solar Dynamics Observatory, part of NASA's Living with a Star program. (I personally think that's the best name ever given to a government program. Ever.)

This photo was taken in extreme ultraviolet light, making the highly decorative magnetic loops on the sun's surface visible. You can also watch this as a movie on the SDO website, which is beautiful and more than a little spooky.

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA

Sunday bird blogging

A nice plump chipping sparrow steadfastly refusing to look in my direction.

A head full of snow

(Though I don't think I mean it in the quite the same way as Mick and the boys did.)

There were flurries all afternoon, and in the middle of my usual Saturday errands, I treated myself to a chai latte, which I drank sitting on a concrete wall on West 43rd Street. It was a tolerable 30 degrees or so, and it was lovely to drink hot tea while snow swirled gently around and dusted my clothes.

Eventually the cold concrete leached enough heat out of my ass that I couldn't stay still anymore, but it was a lovely interlude, like sitting inside a snow globe.

Saturday reflections

Early morning on Sixth Avenue, as reflected in a snow-dirty, streaky car window.

Urban poetry

The stalks of last year's flowers poke through this week's snow in an untended planter outside an office building in the West 50's.

Astronomy Tuesday

These two galaxies, M81 and M82, really are dancing with each other, gravity pulling them slowly, slowly together. It's a leisurely seduction, even by galactic standards -- it will be a billion years or so before they actually hook up.

Image Credit and Copyright: Ivan Eder

Sunday bird blogging

Yes, another woodpecker. Sorry, I haven't seen much else recently, and at least those clownish colors brighten up the winter browns.

Saturday reflections

Wintry colors here, which feel appropriate on a day when the air is rushing around enthusiastically, shoving the trees outside my window back and forth and sharpening the bitter cold temperatures.

It was 12 degrees when I got up, and eventually I had to give up on the idea that I wasn't going to go outside until it hit a minimum of 20, since that may not happen until April.

Urban poetry

Some big office buildings try to keep their tenants from clustering around the building entrances when they go outside for a smoke. So you see a lot of signs like this.

Being, for the most part, ignored.

Astronomy Tuesday

The Orion nebula can allegedly be seen with the naked eye. Maybe, with better eyes than I have.

The best view I ever got was in the bush of Zambia, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, and even through strong binoculars it was just a white smudge. This magnificent mosaic, taken in different bands of infrared light by the orbiting WISE observatory, is something else entirely.

Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing and Copyright : Francesco Antonucci

Snow day