Rise and Fall

This is not the image of a happy person. So what, I at least managed to find the elusive sleep after taking your good advice, Constant Reader. Then I took a pill.

I think I'm fairly fine now. No, I think I'm lying to myself.

How and why an image rises to the surface of memory is beyond my musings, but I know that some memories come back to us like the deep perfume of a good wine rising to greet the senses. Others arise like a swollen rotten corpse dropped into the lake whose blood gases cause it to float to the surface. This is the latter.

I wrote a letter and mailed it to the garbage. It was a nice letter because I love this person. I prayed to God by all names. They were strong prayers because I love God. I devoured books to try and collapse my eyes. It was useful reading because I love books. I did everything to think of this old and useless memory then let it go, back into the universe. Why now? I'm so busy in my little orbit I don't have time to nurse these culprits and no inclination either. So what's going on.

Maybe aging. Maybe nature in all its organic glory is having a jab at my brain. I always thought if you ignore something long enough it'll go away. Like your teeth. So for now I'm ignoring this thing with all my might, which is wrong, and coming here, Constant Reader, to deliver it all up to you.

Oddly, this involves a family member I truly like! Always have, and will. Love them in fact. They don't even know I'm sure, don't remember, it was SO long ago, and truly so unimportant. So how could it knock me over?


Time for the professionals.

Sleep Eludes The Elusive

I haven't slept in about 50 hours (shhh-that's a secret) but I think if I could just find the nerve to stop being secretive (read silent) with a family member I love, and just tell them how they pained me long ago, maybe the magic soothing grace of sleep will return.

Do things like this happen to you? It feels so...

If you have an extra prayer, I'll gratefully accept.

Still Trying, Begging Patience

Egypt's Osirian Triad

This is a slightly different video of the beautiful story I wanted to tell, than the first one I had the nerve to put here lol. If you're patient you'll see I can actually improve! Needed: New camera. Better video-making skills. It's the same story of ancient Egypt's Osirian Triad, but my future ventures will be about very incredible things you may never have suspected about the past. I thank you again for your patient kindness.

An Old Friend Is Tired Now

Before you, dear faithful worker in the skies, we humans were blind. You gave us our first look at what some call the "eye of God'' an astonishing star nursery called the Cat's Eye Nebula and caught by your own giant eye. So many mysteries we've become familiar with thanks to your work of 20 years. You showed us immense almost impossible supergiant red stars like this one below. It is the star "Monocerotis" thought to be in its nova eruption. Look at the detail you brought us!

And now, friend HUBBLE, your mission is ending. Your advanced replacement will direct us into worlds we can't begin to imagine, and which you paved the way for. Progress dictates that soon, you will receive your last command of so many thousands, to close your giant eye and turn toward earth, back to your home planet. Your entry will be a firey burn set to end in Pacific waters, many gigantic pieces crashing into that great sea. I can think of no finer tribute to you, our HUBBLE, than a display of some of your most startling pictures.
Above: A giant mosaic of the Crab nebula, as incredibly sharp as all these photos. These are the remnants of a star going supernova - it is 6 light years wide. Arguably one of the most intriguing, these are incubators where stars are born, this one being part of the Eagle Nebula. Pillars of creation.This is a field of ultra-deep space, with billions of galaxies whose light has taken 13 billion years to reach earth, making them some of the earliest galaxies to form in our Universe.Saturn. Without a doubt one of the sharpest images of her.Two galaxies gently swing past each other. You are looking 300 million light years into the past.Pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy descending onto Jupiter's surface. If this had happened on Earth we would've been destroyed, which gives an idea of the emmense size of Jupiter. This perfectly formed spiral galaxy is in the constellation Pisces, not much larger than our own Milky Way - another spiral galaxy. And now the best for last:
A mystery and a challenge. This is DARK MATTER which makes up about 23% of the energy in the Universe. Normal matter like stars, planets, people - make up 4 %. The rest of the Universe is driven by something called DARK ENERGY.
Hubble afforded me so many choices of astounding beauty to show you, I could only choose what I thought the very best, for their clarity and importance. Soon, by the year 2013, we will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, suitably futuristic and a step into far outer space. It's "Wide Field Imager" has almost 20 times that of Hubble and at certain wavelengths is much more sensitive. But that is to come. I just want to say goodbye to an old and dear friend.
" vigilo astrum "

You May Never See This Again

The handiwork of an immense power.

This incredible picture is real, taken by my brother last week on the Idaho-Washington border. It is the rarest of all naturally occurring atmospheric phenomenon. It is called a "fire rainbow" and lasted about 1 hour. For this to occur the clouds must be cirrus, 20,000 feet in the air, and just the right amount of ice crystals and sun must hit the clouds at precisely 58 degrees. Amazing. (Originals too big to fit here)
These are shots he took of the Northern Lights over Yellow Knife, Yukon, Canada.

So is this, our only world, a miracle or what ! " vigilo astrum "