Astronomy Tuesday

NGC 6960, the Veil Nebula, in another of the winners in the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year for 2025.

Image credit: © Zixiong Jin (China)

Astronomy Tuesday

This amazing image was one of the winners in the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year for 2025. It was taken during the lunar occultation (when the moon passes in front of another celestial object) of Saturn in August.

Image credit: “Saturnrise” © Tom Williams (UK)

Saturday reflections

The porthole on a washer in our laundry room makes a fun frame.

That brand-new white comforter I was congratulating myself for buying just a few days ago? Well, it had an unfortunate encounter with a chocolate protein shake and I spent much of Wednesday schlepping up and down the five flights of stairs between my apartment and this washing machine, when I really should have been doing class prep.

Those stairs are not getting easier with age, arthritis, and injury, but one thing I have acquired is the ability to laugh things off and then just deal with them—that stupid accident would have had me pissed off at myself for days in my youth. (I was much less sanguine about having no internet all day Thursday and having to install the new modem and router that had been sitting in boxes on my living room carpet waiting for a convenient time. I hope my mother was covering her ears up in heaven because there were several hours of loud, nonstop cursing.)

Urban poetry

Bryant Park becomes a Christmas market during the holidays, and picking my way through the crowds on on the adjacent sidewalk on my way home tonight was annoying. It was so cold and these people are so slow!

But this line of pedicabs waiting for fares cheered me up, though my admittedly Scroogey self would have probably gone for the one not dressed as Santa Claus. Just because.

I did actually take a pedicab once, many years ago. I'd been to a corporate Christmas party, and it had started to snow. I wasn't dressed for the weather, and there wasn't a cab to be found (pre-Uber days) and so when the guy on the bicycle offered to take me home for what a cab would have cost, I climbed aboard. And it was strange, but fun, and I will probably never do it again.

Another day in this endlessly fascinating and amusing city

I saw this sign on West 24th Street on my way back from the dermatologist yesterday.

I was tempted to take a peek but I did not disturb the birds.

Astronomy Tuesday

It's been a long time. I do occasionally see images from the Webb telescope and think, Oh I should post that. And I don't.

But I especially love this Webb look at Sagittarius B2. This molecular cloud near the core of the Milky Way is one of the largest in the galaxy. This image was taken in near-infrared, which doesn't capture all of the clouds of dust and gas but is better for seeing the stars. And such stars!

Image credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Adam Ginsburg (University of Florida), Nazar Budaiev (University of Florida), Taehwa Yoo (University of Florida); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Sunday bird blogging

Another look at the irritated crow in Glacier National Park this past summer.

It's been quite cold, and it's lovely to be able to snuggle inside all day if I want to. I usually use a weighted blanket in the fall and winter; I don't know that it really helps me sleep better but I do love the sensation of lying under a pile of warmth in a chilly room. But after I hurt my knee, it was hard to turn over in bed, and impossible under all that weight. I sleep with the window open a few inches (in New York apartments with steam heat, the thermostat is the window) but sometimes it goes from pleasantly chilly to downright freezing over the course of the night. I'm hot. Then I'm cold. And I missed my weighted blanket.

All of this is to say that after weeks of being annoyed about this, it finally occurred to me that I could just buy another comforter. Not weighted, just a regular comforter. Now I'm warm when I need to be, and I can turn over no matter how grumpy my knee is feeling, and I feel like an idiot for not having thought of this sooner.

Saturday reflections

This appears to be a defunct handicrafts shop on the main street in Faringdon, seen this past summer. The reflections are mostly in the shop name, though I do like how the window reflections and that rusty grate below them make a face.

But the sign on the door says that G & L Evans is in attendance during business hours, and available by phone 24 hours a day. Google tells me that this is a funeral provider, which explains their availability, but not why they are operating out of this rundown storefront.

More urban poetry

I always wished I had a better version of this picture—I was on a bus heading back to Lisbon from Belem in 2011. I loved those yellow chimneys under that sky and wished that I could see them better. But at least I have this picture.

Urban poetry

Washington Heights last winter. Taken from the window of my car, which gives me a (very brief) moment of regret.

Sunday bird blogging

This picture is a couple of years old, but I don't think I ever posted it.

Tufted titmice always make me smile, and I'm already happy because I had a great class yesterday and now I have a week off.

Don't pet the fluffy cows

A bison calf trotting obediently after Mom in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

A large herd of bison decided to stand in the middle of the road and were in no hurry to move on, so we had plenty of time to watch them while we sat in the long line of cars. Many pictures, which I will share—really!—at some point, but this is my favorite.