Octavia E. Butler died four days ago.

I just posted about Octavia Butler's books on Saturday (maybe that was for a reason, since she died Friday).

"For more than 30 years, Seattle science-fiction novelist Octavia Butler dreamed up fantastic worlds and religions, made-up creatures and futuristic plots. Then, in her stylistic prose, she used them to tackle the social issues she was most passionate about."

"Octavia Estelle Butler was born June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, Calif., the only child that her mother carried to full term; four other children died before her birth... Six feet tall and a self-described happy hermit, Ms. Butler escaped easy definition. 'I'm comfortably asocial,' she once wrote, 'a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.'"

"'Parable of the Talents,' a futuristic story about a utopian community ravaged by civil war, explored modern-day issues of intolerance, the growing gap between rich and poor, and environmentalism. In her first novel, 'Kindred,' she plunged into racial issues when a modern-day character was transported into the body of a pre-Civil War slave.

"'What [Ms. Butler] was writing for the first time was a kind of woman's-eye view, a very smart woman's-eye view, of say, "Brave New World" or "1984,"' said writer Harlan Ellison, Ms. Butler's friend and mentor.

"Ms. Butler died Friday at Northwest Hospital after a fall at her home in Lake Forest Park. She was 58.

A memorial service has been scheduled for science-fiction writer Octavia Butler at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2, 2006, on the third level of the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, at 325 Fifth Ave. N., Seattle. Butler served on the advisory board for the museum.


Articles and obits from: The Business Standard (India), The Washington Post, NYC IndyMedia (features an interview with Butler from January), and another one from WaPo: "Octavia Butler, A Lonely, Bright Star Of the Sci-Fi Universe."

...and then there's this one: "Octavia Butler and the reading wars"

Tonight's post-twilight light showand other photon phenomena

"Zodiacal light (or gegenschein) is sunlight reflected from interplanetary dust. The phenomenon is best seen on March and April evenings [or on Sept. and Oct. mornings] when the dusty plane of our solar system pokes over the horizon almost vertically. A dark sky with no city lights or moonlight is required* to see the faint glow. With a New Moon, tonight (Feb. 27-28) is a good night to look."


* "A very dark observing location -- with a dark horizon lacking light pollution -- on a moonless night are absolutely necessary [to see zodiacal light].


"More difficult to see is the Gegenschein, or opposition light. Right opposite on the ecliptic to where the sun is located, a faint elliptical glow with a diameter of about 15 to 20 degrees is visible. It is best visible at local midnight when it reaches its highest point in the sky. In December, it is lost in the bright Milky Way, so the best time to search for it is in November (in the northern hemisphere at least; from the southern hemisphere, it is May). Around 15-20 November, it is located between the Pleiades and Hyades, these two clusters providing a nice celestial landmark to the phenomenon.

"An even more difficult faint glow [to observe is the one that] connects the tops of the morning and evening light to the Gegenschein: the light bridge. This is the most difficult to observe of all zodiacal light phenomenon.

Polluted light vs. sight of the night

"Here is a modern irony: spacecraft and telescope technology can deliver breathtaking views of the near and far universe, while the technology which lights our nights simultaneously draws a veil across the night sky.

"Light pollution robs us, in the last millisecond of its journey, of light which may have travelled for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years to reach our planet... Are we cutting ourselves off from the direct experience of the rest of the universe?"

"There is a trend nowadays for road lighting to be better directed, not least because of the efforts of concerned bodies of astronomers such as the International Dark-Sky Association and the British Astronomical Association's Campaign for Dark Skies. But most private lighting is not designed to restrict emissions to the premises to be lit, causing light trespass and nuisance to many non-astronomers, too. The fact that light is not legally considered a pollutant like noise and smoke means that victims of light pollution have little redress, and the stars have no protection in law."

Off the (star)charts

Beautifully produced celesial maps
from antiquity, via Moon River

Somethin's blowin' up in Aries...

"Scientists using NASA's SWIFT satellite have detected a new kind of cosmic explosion. The event appears to be a precursor to a supernova, which is expected to reach peak brightness in one week [from Feb. 24th -- Ed.].

"Scores of satellites and ground-based telescopes are now trained on the sight, watching and waiting. Amateur astronomers in the northern hemisphere with a good telescope in dark skies can also view it.

"The explosion has the trappings of a gamma-ray burst, the most distant and powerful type of explosion known. Yet this explosion, detected on February 18, was about 25 times closer and 100 times longer than the typical gamma-ray burst. And it possesses characteristics never seen before.

"'This is totally new and unexpected,' said Neil Gehrels, Swift principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'This is the type of unscripted event in our nearby universe that we hoped Swift could catch.'

"The explosion, called GRB 060218 after the date it was discovered, originated in a star-forming galaxy about 440 million light-years away toward the constellation Aries. This is the second-closest gamma-ray burst ever detected, if indeed it is a true burst.

"The burst of gamma rays lasted for nearly 2,000 seconds; most bursts last a few milliseconds to tens of seconds. The explosion was surprisingly dim, however, suggesting that scientists might be viewing the event slightly off-axis. Yet this is just one explanation on the table. The standard theory for gamma-ray bursts is that the high-energy light is beamed in our direction.

"'There are still many unknowns,' said John Nousek, the Swift mission director at Penn State University, State College, Penn. 'This could be a new kind of burst, or we might be seeing a gamma-ray burst from an entirely different angle. This off-angle glance -- a profile view, perhaps -- has given us an entirely new approach to studying star explosions. Had this been farther away, we would have missed it.'"

Oh no they did not plan to put this into orbit during Mercury Retrograde...!

"A NASA spacecraft bound for Mars is nearing the end of its seven-month journey, but still faces a white-knuckle arrival at a planet known for swallowing scientific probes, mission managers said Friday.

"The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is on course to enter orbit around the Red Planet on March 10. If successful, it will spend the next two years photographing the surface and scouting for future landing sites...

"Within the last 15 years, NASA has lost two spacecraft during the tricky orbit-insertion phase around Mars. In 1993, scientists lost contact with the Mars Observer just before it was to enter orbit. The space agency was dealt another blow six years later when the Mars Climate Orbiter failed on arrival."



Obviously, NASA needs an in-house astrologer. Merc Ret will be in full effect from March 2 until March 24.

Buddha Eyes

the art of Kris Hoglund

via Youngfox

You might not be the personthat you've been told thatyou are, astrologically speaking.

This an excerpt of a post on sidereal astrology from December.
I just received some new information.

"Sidereal astrology is the practice of some Western and all Indian astrologers to base their study of the sky on the actual position of the planets in relation to the starry background. Most astrologers in the Americas and in Western Europe have adopted the tropical zodiac approach. They base their study on a notional view of the heavens that does not match the actual positions of the stars.



"Sidereal astrology is more closely related to the actual constellations. Precession of the equinoxes moves the astrology signs forward through the years. Thus, sidereally, Aries begins in April instead of March. As an example, if you are a March Aries in tropical astrology, then you are a Pisces in sidereal astrology."



These are the current dates
for the Sun's transit through the zodiac:

Capricorn: January 19 to February 15
Aquarius: February 16 to March 11
Pisces: March 12 to April 18
Aries: April 19 to May 13
Taurus: May 14 to June 19
Gemin: June 20 to July 20
Cancer: July 21 to August 9
Leo: August 10 to September 15
Virgo: September 16 to October 30
Libra: October 31 to November 22
Scorpius: November 23 to November 29
Ophiuchus: November 30 to December 17
Sagittarius: December 18 to January 18

"About 2,000 years ago, the sidereal and tropical zodiacal systems were in approximate agreement. However, the tropical zodiacal system assumes that the constellations are all the same size, which they are not.

"Finally, because of precession of the equinoxes, there is a difference of about one zodiacal sign between the two systems."

The other heart of the universe

I found out that a painting I called Heart of the Universe is the No. 1 search return for that same phrase via Google. The image and text below were connected to return No. 2:


"Mumtaz Hussain's recent paintings continue the artist's engagement with language and history. The relationship of hieroglyphs in his new work contracts with Hussain's calligraphic paintings that invoked the Islamic tradition of poetry as visual expression, the new paintings are an attempt to make direct pictorial statements. The esoteric has given way to a universal communication. Ironically, Hussain has had to reach for one of the earliest civilizations, the Indus Valley, for inspiration to make paintings that are both contemporary and immediate."

Circumpolar stellar rotation

Where the ETs are (maybe)

"Astronomers have identified a star in the Milky Way galaxy that is the most likely candidate for possessing a companion planet that harbours intelligent extraterrestrial life.

"It is a sun-like star called beta CVn in the constellation Canes Venatici and it appears to possess all the necessary preconditions that would allow an advanced civilisation to flourish on a nearby planet.

"The star is 26 light years away - 153 trillion miles - and it heads a shortlist of five stars that astronomer Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution in Washington believes could be the focus of fresh attempts to make contact with other intelligent beings.

"Dr Turnbull selected her top five from an initial catalogue of 17,129 stars that could be "habitable stellar systems" where the physical conditions would not be too extreme to limit the evolution and development of intelligent life and its technology."

Unicorn maiden

Please click carefully,as Aya's menu has changed.

Just visited Aya Kato's Cheval Noir site and noticed that her most recent updates include a (slight) change in image organization. There are also some new images!

A planetary landscape

"This image taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, shows the depression of Juventae Chasma, cut into the plains of Lunae Planum on Mars.

"In the north-eastern part of the scene, there is a mountain composed of bright, layered material. This mountain is approximately 2500 metres high, 59 kilometres long and up to 23 kilometres wide."

From ESA's Mars Express image archive

Yeoju views

There's more to see
at nmazca.com/yeoju.

The artwork of Miyuki Tsugami

"Miyuki Tsugami, born 1973... The main theme of her work is 'scenery,' but she does not mean drawing the real scenery. Instead, she tries to re-establish time and space within a given scenery in a most defined way. By looking at her drawing, one will be able to experience the emotion that the drawing projects..."

another item that floated down Moon River

The celestial mechanicsof mundane contraptions

"'Celestial Mechanics' is a planetarium artwork being created by Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne. Rather than a presentation of stars and planets, this 'night sky' program reveals many of the aerial technologies hovering, flying, and drifting above us. This project combines science, statistical display, and contemporary art by interpreting the mechanical patterns and behaviors of these systems as culturally significant poetics...

"At any given moment, there can be 30,000 man-made objects in the sky above us: Planes, helicopters, satellites, weather balloons, space debris, and other diverse technologies. They watch, they guide, they protect, they communicate, they transport, they predict, they look out into the stars.


"Our lives are closely tied to these networks in the sky, but a disjunction has occurred between us and the aerial technologies we use every day. We rarely consider the hulking, physical machines that have now become core to our lifestyle. By not being aware of the hardware we use every day, we may also not be aware of the social, economic, cultural, and political importance of these technologies. By visualizing them, it may lead to a better understanding of the forces that are shaping our future."

See also: Flight Patterns, which presents visualizations of air traffic patterns provided by the FAA.

All these items floated my way from the Moon River.

An alternate origin storyfor the Rabbit in the Moon

"People have long interpreted a series of dark patches on the Moon's surface as a human face [or, throughout Asia, as a rabbit pressing rice cakes -- Ed.], but no one knew how they formed. Now, scientists at Ohio State University appear to have solved the mystery by creating a topographical model of the Moon and mapping gravity signatures of rocks all the way to the core.

"Their findings suggest that the impacts of ancient collisions on the far side of the Moon were so great they caused a corresponding bulge on the near side, and the Earth's gravitational pull further tugged at this bulge.

"Those colossal movements opened cracks in the crust and let magma from the lunar mantle flood onto the surface, at a time when the Moon was still geologically active. This solidified to form what we now see from Earth as the eyes, nose and mouth of the Man in the Moon [or the rabbit I mentioned above]."

OK, I suppose I have to do some moon math.

I have not been able to find that sought-after lunar timing resource for South Korea (though I haven't looked that rigorously). So I'll add 8 or 9 hours to the Universal Time listed by the Naval Observatory and move on...

I just finished weedingthe fractal garden.

I'm a bit surprised that I let it go like that for so long.

Over at nmazca.com/fractalism, you will now find a proper assortment of fractal flora and other iterative eye candy.

Not quite a Full Moon tonight...

...but I'm starting to get into that Full Moon photo groove.



"The mountains in Alan Friedman's image are the Lunar Alps, a range named after the Alps of Europe. The diagonal slash is the moon's Alpine Valley, and the oval crater is Plato... Crater Plato and the Lunar Alps are easy to see through a backyard telescope. You'll find them on the northern shores of Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Rains."

The latter via Spaceweather, the former via Google... while I continue to search for lunar timings in Korea.

Something soothing

Will the real ninth planet please stand up?

Updated 8 Feb 2006

"In another Nature paper about the Kuiper Belt published this week, Frank Bertoldi of University of Bonn and four colleagues report thermal observations taken with the Institute for Millimeter Radio Astronomy's 30-meter telescope in Spain that confirm that the distant object 2003 UB313 is indeed larger than Pluto.

"By comparing UB313's brightness and reflectivity, Bertoldi and his colleagues measure a diameter of about 3,000 km, which is 700 km larger than Pluto's. These results are consistent with previous Spitzer Space Telescope observations of this so-called 'tenth planet' that were announced four months ago.


"'Since UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto,' says Bertoldi, 'it is now increasingly hard to justify calling Pluto a planet if UB313 is not also given this status.'"

See also:

The Pluto Problem and 2003 UB313
and The Pluto Problem, Part Two

Earth Art Reaches The Heart

This was one of the meanings for the EARTH acronym that Chiaka Zulu (Chiaka Howee) had written across the bottom of the paintings below. The first, "The Dreamer" as I call it, is about to be hung in my classroom here in Korea.

A profile on Chiaka, a visionary, interplanetary, mind-brightening artist who lives in Seattle, can be found at ArtUncommon. The image below features his work on a flyer for Festival Sundiata, which will take place February 18-20 at Seattle Center.

Deep viewing in Virgo

"An international team of 13 astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to stare for 25 hours at a relatively barren patch of space near the center of the Virgo Cluster.

"This vast assemblage contains more than 1,000 known galaxies and is centered about 55 million light-years from Earth, making it the largest galaxy cluster in the local universe. The ACS image covered an area of sky about 1 percent the size of the full Moon. Known as the Virgo IntraCluster Stars project, it is one of the deepest Hubble images ever taken."

Egypt Extra

So... way back when, when we lived along the Nile, I had scribbled down a number of weblinks and publication titles that came to my attention.

We're in Korea now and I just cleaned out my wallet (American and Thai phone cards, Taiwanese bookstore and restaurant cards, a miniature page of the Koran (that I found on the floor of Trabant chai house, an hour before I left Seattle)... There was also the ticket stub from the Khalil Musuem in Cairo, but there's a whole other story connected with that.

For now, please peruse:

Kmt, A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt

The Bulletin of the Egyptian Exploration Society

The Giza Archives Project

Cairo Magazine

Egypt Today... with a special mention of an article on the zar, an indigenous healing ceremony that was illegal to perform since Islam forbids the practice of magic. "It's one of the few healing ceremonies performed mainly by women for women in an attempt to pacify the spirits and win some measure of inner harmony."

Bedouin of the Sinai
(a coffetable photo book)

The Sinai Widerness: endangered wildlife and vanishing cultures

Reflections on fieldwork with Sinai Bedouin women


And that's that.

Starlight musing in South Korea:"Perhaps the stars are more humanthan we think..."

That's from the conclusion of an article about stargazing in South Korea. One of the sites featured, Sejong Observatory, is just a few minutes down the highway from our place.

Temple tourismon a Saturday afternoon

My Lady Friend and I are now in Yeoju, Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea. This is about 45 minutes ESE of Seoul. We went out into the COLD air (our first experience of northern hemisphere winter after being in Cairo, Bangkok and then Taipei these past few months) to hail a taxi into town, but we ended up walking over to the World Ceramic Expo site across the street.

Behind all of the ceramic shops and a park is Silleuksa Temple, "a historical temple believed to have been founded by Saint Wonhyo during the Silla Dynasty. The Silleuksa Temple is one of the only lakeside temples in Korea."