Space and Time

This is from the Orion nebula. Known to science as M-42. Swirling dust clouds. Many light years away. Below Orion belt, in the stellar constellation, is a fuzzy area, the sword, it is called, there is a cloud mist, which they say is a star factory or incubator, sometimes it is called. This looks quite beautiful through field glasses, and any telescope. The photo is by Nasa, taken by the Hubble Telescope. I guess there is a team that puts together the Astronomy Picture of the Day, with commentary by a "real astronomer" they assure you. It is worth a visit, and often jump-starts my day, a visit to the site. Http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

I got the astronomy bug back in High School. Saw an ad in the back of a Marvel Comix for a telescope for something like $2.90. I talked Garren Tate into going in with me on it. The thing came to our surprise in a tiny box, and consisted of two lenses, about a half inch diameter!!! No instructions, except a blurry printed note, thanking me for my savvy purchase and hoping I would enjoy its use forever! Well, using the technology at hand, I got a large cardboard tube, spool from a carpet, from the trash of a local furniture store. (They make good stage props also. Columns and lamp posts, etc.)

Orion, the hunter. The most recognizable constellation, with the great red giant Betelgeuse and the brilliant blue Rigel. And, impossible to ignor, the near-by dogs. Canis Major, the big dog with the bright eye Sirius, the brightest star we can see here in the northern hemisphere. Orion seems to be shooting Taurus, the bull, for some reason, with it mean bright eye, red giant Aldebaran, charging the twins, Castor and Polux, the Gemini twins. The little dog, Canis Minor, with its brigh star Procyon, yapping near by.

And the continuing wanderers. The Planets, our siblings in the Sun solar system. Right now, Venus, our near neighbor, is rising in the East as the moon is setting in the west. Stunningly bright. At night you can see Jupitor, Saturn, hanging very close to the Pleiades, sometimes called the little dipper, more correctly, the seven sisters, like diamonds on black velvet when seen through a telescope, even field glasses. Naked eye shows a fuzzy patch.... and Mars, bright red, back in hard to make out Cancer. I think.

Check out http://www.earthsky.com/ For the moon, a great sight is http://www.inconstantmoon.com musical, and not updated the last time I looked, with more info about our closest celestial neighbor than you may want to know. It has some music if you like. Guess what? Moonlight Sonata, Clair de Lune..... Blue Moon!!!!

Looking back to the origin of our universe through light years, light minutes, light seconds..... Makes me humble. Makes me tremble. How important we make ourselves out to be, when we are such an infinitesimal speck in the overall and increasing size or God's creation, and how unlightly we are to be here in the first place, and how we cry and moan and curse our fate to no real avail except to make ourselves feel miserable. I like to look to the stars for hope and confidence. And feel the warmth of our closest star and praise the God of creation, and thank fortune that I have been endowed with life, a little lower than the angels, it says in some sacred text or other.....