Carina closeup

"This photo, taken with NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's cameras, shows a portion of the Carina Nebula. The image shows a towering 'mountain' of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust, which is the site of new star formation. A pencil-like streamer of gas shoots out in both directions from the pillar. The jet is being launched from a newly forming star hidden inside the column. A similar jet appears near the bottom of the image.These stellar jets are a common signature of the birth of a new star.

"The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen.The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina."

Kane County crepusculars

Some subtle crepuscular effects
'round sunset on the 22nd.

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Sunspheres

Midday captures of Sol

Minor obscurationsof divine light, pt. 2

Somewhere around St. Charles...




Part 1...Part 1.1

Minor obscurationsof divine light, pt. 1.1

Part 1...Part 2

Minor obscurationsof divine light, pt. 1

From the drive back to Chicago...







Part 1.1...Part 2

Sunset conjunction

Last night, the Moon and Venus silently glided past the trees... and the sky was clear here in northern Illinois, so I am able to share the view with you.



Somehow, I didn't notice that the Moon was conjunct with the Pleiades, also... must have been that tree... but here are some other individuals' high-quality highlights of that scene:


by Mohammad Pilevar, Iran

by Dan Bush, USA

by Babek Tafreshi, Iran

I have to say, looking at the countries of origin above, that we will get along in this world if we keep our common desires and highest ideals at heart. Perhaps viewing the Moon can be a path toward world peace.

Abstract ice on Mars

"False-color Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a side of the Chasma Boreale, a canyon in the polar ice cap of the Planum Boreum (north pole of Mars). Light browns are layers of surface dust, greys and blues are layers of water and carbon dioxide ice. Regular geometric cracking is indicative of higher concentrations of water ice."

Click the image for a much more detailed version (at 8.7 MB).

The night of the New Moonbrings news of a new moon.

I've either been occupied or offline or on the move (or all three) these last few weeks. So there haven't been many astro-updates of either the physical or the metaphysical variety. Here's a dose of both before I head to bed...

OK, apparently I'll need to look around for another metaphysical source to share. I'll just mention that the Moon entered a New phase yesterday at 11:36 Universal Time (four hours ahead of Eastern Daylight). If you can get to high ground with a clear view later today, the 18th, you might be able to see a slim waxing crescent after sunset.

Meanwhile, in other orbital news...


"Earth's gravity apparently captured a tiny asteroid that ventured too near our planet last year. But this "second Moon" will only hang around until June, when it'll get shoved back out into interplanetary space."

Spitzer's Sisters

"The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades, are seen in a new infrared image made by the Spitzer Space Telescope and released by NASA. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation.

"The star cluster was born about 100 million years ago. The new infrared image shows the dust cloud, colored yellow, green and red in this view, where the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red hues, and the more diffuse outskirts appear in green hues."

Creation stories, ceremonial craftsand the cardinal points

These are just the barest bits to share from our visit to the National Museum of the American Indian several days ago.

The museum's exhibits present not only the history, cosmology and cultural artifacts of the people, but they also bring the moderns concerns and creativity of these tribes to the visitor's attention. As the message was stated in many different ways, "We're still here."


Creation Story by Harry Fonseca
(who died in December, I later learned)
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Yupik masks


Assorted beaded clothing


General associations made with the four directions
of the medicine wheel (though the associations
aren't the same for all tribes, some of whom
don't even use a wheel to designate them)

"Mini Big Bangs," indeed.

Updated April 11; see below.

"A £2 billion project to answer some of the biggest mysteries of the universe has been delayed by months after scientists building it made basic errors in their mathematical calculations.

"The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing an evacuation.*


See: "We are going to make mini Big Bangs."

"The machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), aims to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang, when the universe is thought to have exploded into existence about 14 billion years ago. However, the November start-up may now have to be delayed until next spring.**

"Dr Lyn Evans, who leads the accelerator construction project at Cern, the European organisation for nuclear research, said the explosion had been potentially very dangerous.

“'There was a hell of a bang, the tunnel housing the machine filled with helium and dust and we had to call in the fire brigade to evacuate the place,' he said. 'The people working on the test were frightened to death but they were all in a safe place so no-one was hurt.' An investigation by Cern researchers found 'fundamental' flaws that caused the explosion, close to the CMS detector, one of the LHC’s most important experiments.

"The accelerator is designed to smash together protons, a kind of sub-atomic particle, at near light speed. The hope is that such collisions will generate exotic new particles — especially the so-called Higgs boson which, theorists predict, could help explain key properties of matter, such as how it acquires mass and, hence, weight.

"The failure is a huge embarrassment for Fermilab, the American national physics laboratory that built the magnets and the anchor system that secured them to the machine.

"It appears Fermilab made elementary mistakes in the design of the magnets and their anchors that made them insecure once the system was operational.

"Coincidentally, Fermilab stands to gain most from delays at Cern. Its researchers also operate a rival but less powerful particle accelerator, the Tevatron.

"Fermilab staff are pushing the Tevatron to ever-higher energies hoping that they might find the Higgs boson before the LHC switches on. An LHC researcher said: 'Ironically, this delay could be all they need.'"***

I know someone at Fermilab who related the following bits:

* Talk of an evacuation (from the underground complex, at least) was incorrect.

** Fermilab is about to present a repair plan that might not require any loss of startup time.

*** There's already been extensive testing done with the Tevatron (which is slated to be deactivated by 2010), so from a statistical not to mention financial standpoint, there's not much of a point in trying to push even further with tests at Fermilab -- especially when the LHC will be able to produce larger, faster and more refined data soon enough.

DC sakura

Seven sets of sparkly specimens

These were taken in the section of the National Museum
of Natural History devoted to geology and gems.


A cross-section of gibeon that landed in Namibia.


Assorted ferrous meteorites


Colored quartz


Giant gypsum crystals
(but not as big as these)


Blue fluorite


Maroon fluorite


A shrub-sized specimen of amethyst

Crystalline intelligence

Mr. Damon's nightstand


Amethyst specimen
at the Nat'l Museum
of Natural History

Hirshhorn highlights

[This'll be the last museum tour for tonight.]

I was browsing through the sites for the Smithsonian museums when I noticed an image of Olafur Eliasson's Round Rainbow on one of the Hirshhorn's pages. Turned out that the museum had a special exhibition up called "Refract, Reflect, Project" that featured works that make use of light.

The exhibit ended yesterday, by the way. Here's a review from WaPo.




"A highlight of the exhibition is Olafur Eliasson's Round Rainbow (2005), which combines a spotlight mounted on a tripod and a circle of acrylic glass. This prism device transforms a gallery into a dynamic space bathed in rainbows of light and shadow. In a work that is scientific in one respect and sensual in another, the installation brings a phenomenon usually experienced in nature into the museum, encouraging people to interact with their environment in new ways."


Untitled, Robert Irwin


Transparent Rhythms II, Yaacov Agam
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Astralite 7, Adam Peiperl

Raven Steals the Moon

A work by Ed Archie NoiseCat
at the National Museum
of the American Indian.

A few specimens from the few minutesthat we had at the Botanic Garden.

We arrived at the garden
with 25 minutes left
before it closed.

Don't scroll too fast
or you'll miss 'em.


Ashwagandha


Aquatic-looking orchids


Salvia divinorum

Airborne on April 7

Meanwhile, inside the Masonic matrix...

...I caught a glimpse of the symbolism that my mind's eye had been trying to discern all weekend.

Since Reagan National Airport is so close to the National Mall, I thought that I might get a shot of the area from above. I did, indeed. And what's that I saw after a quick glance at the image? The straight, piercing shaft of the Washington Monument rising from the center of a vesica piscis formation on the ground.

To understand what I'm getting at, consider the following items:

"The Vesica Piscis is made by linking two cicles together, bringing the outside edge of each to the midway point of the other. The almond-shaped center of the image is called a mandorla (Latin for almond).

"When the Vesica Piscis is viewed horizontally, the mandorla becomes a different sort of passage: the birth passage. The pointed oval is a universal symbol of the Divine Feminine, and in this context the Vesica Piscis is the vulva of the Goddess, surrounded by the crescents of the waxing and waning Moon...

"The early Christians saw the mandorla as a bridge between heaven and earth. Beyond that the two circles of the Vesica Piscis represent life and death, with the birth canal - both of the Goddess and the individual - serving as the passage between. The place between: that is the essence and the magic of the symbol..."


"The Washington Monument lies on a straight line, precisely 90 degrees west of the Capitol Building. The Washington Monument is the most important Presidential monument to the occultist, because it is an obelisk set inside a circle...

"The Washington Monument was built to commemorate our first president, George Washington (who was a Freemason)... This monument, constructed to honor the first Masonic president, was designed so that both the White House and the Capitol face toward it so that the leaders of both branches have to face the spirit of Lucifer thought to be residing in it. This is typical occultism."

Right. So consider the implication of an edifice like that obelisk being placed upon a sacred geometrical symbol associated with Christ or the Divine Feminine... and how the Freemasons themselves point to the monument as one of their national treasures (though going out of their way to dismiss "the myths and notions" about occult symbolism in such structures, or in the layout of the District itself).

I've been telling a friend of mine who's lived in DC for awhile that she has to get out of that Masonic matrix. I'll continue to do so with added emphasis now.

Strollin' through the Sackler

My Lady Friend and I spent the last few days in the District of Columbia. We visited the Hirshhorn Museum, the National Museums of the American Indian and of Natural History, the Botanic (sic) Garden, the Holocaust Museum, and the Freer and Sackler Galleries.

So, last things first -- the Sackler shots:

Celestial dancer, Karnataka, India


Seated bodhisattva, Nepal


Vasudhara, Goddess of Abundance, Nepal


"The Higher Regions of Paradise and Heaven," India
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Buddhist stela, China


Zhou Dynasty vessel, China


Taoist stela, China
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Earthenware and stoneware, Thailand

On the movein the Midwest

We've been back in the country for six weeks -- Seattle and Reno, Calgary and Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland and other points in between. Here are some of the views from some of my stops.

A Rabbit in the Full Moon

Lunar legend via Moon River:
"Scholars in ancient China studied the natural phenomena of the sky to determine their effects on human destiny... [This illustration], showing a rabbit in the moon (rather than a man, as in European folklore), is a good omen. A bright moon indicates that prosperity is at hand."

This panel is one of several historical paintings and maps in the Library of Congress' World Treasures exhibition, "Explaining and Ordering the Heavens."