Speaking of stars...
 

..and building upon BadNick started (I think..) last page, I'll be following.

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lc...4fjqo1_500.jpg
APOD: 2010 November 20 - Stephan s Quintet

(If you haven't bookmarked of your own volition yet, NASA's APOD, or Astronomy Picture of the Day, is a great website, one might say, even "out-of-this-world" in its offerings.)

Dancing galaxies,
like dancing humans, being
close, more exciting!

I like the sort of humor
inherent nonexistence suggests
in the former post as well.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a black hole :thumbsup:

I wonder how Stephan's Quintet would get along with the Seven Sisters?

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s-24063917.jpg

Speaking of ancient celestial beings...
 

http://data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lby0nr...8ifto1_500.jpg
A young Afghan boy leads a buffalo at a livestock market on the eve of Eid al-Adha
festival in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010. Muslims worldwide celebrate
Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice on Nov. 16, by sacrificial killing of sheep,
goats, cows or camels. The slaughter commemorates the biblical story of Abraham,
who was on the verge of sacrificing his son to obey God’s command, when God
interceded by substituting a ram in the child’s place. --(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

My parochial school education with strong emphasis on Bible History pays off when I read or hear about biblical stories.

My son in 9th grade read the book The Kite Runner which is set in Afghanistan. Afterwards, he said he'd like to visit Afghanistan if they ever end the war there.

Here are some different points of view about the same thing from different parts of the world:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ndtelepic1.jpg
Photographer: Odilon Simões Corrêa
Location: Araxá, Brazil
Date: December 1, 2008 - 22:03 UT
Equipment: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3 digital camera. Settings: F4.9 - ISO 100 - 2.5 seconds.
Description: The graceful Great Kiskadee, a very common Brazilian bird, seems to contemplate the nice celestial triangle formed by the Moon, Venus and Jupiter, in the first December evening.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...conjuction.jpg
Photographer: Rob Graham
Location: Quivira NWR, Kansas
Date: 12/1/08 18:11
Equipment: Canon 50D, Sigma 17-70mm, ISO 800, f/6.3, 5 sec
Description: This is the Venus, Jupiter, Moon conjunction of 12/1/08 as seen from the shores of the Big Salt Marsh at Quivira NWR, Kansas.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...mg_3236vga.jpg
Photographer: Glendon Howell
Location: Chesapeake, VA
Date: 12/1/2008 6 PM EST
Equipment: Canon Digital Rebel XTi on tripod, 85-300mm zoom.
Description: Dec 1 Venus-Jupiter-Moon Conjunction

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...1-DEC-2000.jpg
Photographer: Vangelis Tsintsifas
Location: Mount Olympus, Greece
Date: 01-Dec-2008, 18:00
Equipment: Nikon D40x,Tokina 80-400 at 300mm,f/6.3,1/1.3s,ISO400.
Description: Conjunction between Moon, Venus, and Jupiter, as it sets behind Mount Olympus.

---------- Post added at 11:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 PM ----------

I view through a Meade 2045 just like in the pics below. It's very practical because it's so compact and fits inside the little aluminum carrying case, so you can travel with your junk ;)

specs: Schmidt-Cassegrain lens system, 102mm aperture, f/10 focal ratio, 1000mm focal length, 12v electric stepper motor drive for tracking

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ope/AllBig.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...llPartsBig.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../2045lx3-1.jpghttp://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0536409161.jpg

I came across an interesting "best-of" listing today, and this was the first entry...

We Choose the Moon
http://i54.tinypic.com/acfm9x.jpg
Its name taken from John F. Kennedy’s famous 1962 address to Rice University, We Choose the Moon
is an interactive history exhibit from NASA, allowing you walk through the Apollo 11 Mission, stage by stage.
Each stage has a CG visualization of the mission, as well as real audio from mission control and the astronauts themselves.
If you’re a space buff and haven’t seen WeChooseTheMoon yet, you need to drop everything and check it out, stat.

//NON-RANDOM MUSING
WITHOUT RHYME OR REAL REASON
BUT PLAYING ITS ROLE:

Deciphering's fun!
No anti-semiotic
myth's a puzzle worth.//

I can smell a palindrome nearby

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...guinea-big.gif

Symmetry ahead.

---------- Post added at 04:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------

Good thing my last post
suffered fumbling by my hands
or it might be mine.

One of my favorite songs of the past few weeks has been none other than this (thus?):

Star Guitar, by The Chemimal Brothers

courtesy of wiki:

[audible.]

(for those that are fortunate enough to possess speakers and/or headphones)

Nice view, Jet. We enjoy your jettisons.

(Check out who got it,
as if it's not on purpose!
...seems he likes them, too.)

I like BadNick's mini-ocular-astronomical-finder, as well as his accompanying pictures of the moon. (I wonder what his informationally-replete source was for those? Could it really have been the wunderground?)

- - -

I still have loads more star-centric pieces to post... I wonder if we should coalesce and accumulate this towards an individual topic in the future.

Here's more:
http://data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lc5f39...8ifto1_500.jpg
This artist’s rendering provided by the European Southern Observatory shows a planet, appearing as a crescent at the lower-right of its parent star, HIP 13044, left. While some 500 planets have been identified in other parts of our galaxy — the Milky Way — none have been reported in other galaxies. Now this one has been discovered orbiting the star called HIP 13044, located about 2,000 light year away. While this star is now in the Milky Way, researchers reported in the Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010 online edition of the journal Science that it originated in a separate galaxy that was later cannibalized by ours.
--(AP Photo/European Southern Observatory)

& stardust, my friend,
will be what you are made of
when you're something else.

I should have given credit to where those came from, which is from the Sky & Telescope (ala magazine of the same name) website, from the Community photo gallery section SkyandTelescope.com - Celestial Scenes - Miscellaneous Scenes

Here's another nice pic from there, courtesy of Mr. Mohamadi:

Photographer: Shahab Bedin Mohamadi
Location: Iran
Date: May 7, 2010
Equipment: camera: Canon 40D; mount: Manfrotto 055pro
Description: The first verse of famous poem Damāvand by Mohammad Taqī Bahār: white demon with feet in chains Oh terrestrial dome, Oh Mount Damāvand

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...LAHKHOOD41.jpg

Well, you gave credit to the authors (photographers) which is perhaps the most key thing, so had I taken the extra eight second to copy their names, data-search-input them into google, and see what would have come up, I might have already known this.

Let's try it out: Odilon Simões Corrêa

EDIT:
It works, but it took until the fourth entry down; the first three were from perhaps their personal, Brazilian website.

//I'm not so fond of language
I've been known to trust what it can do
although I hope I've done so.//

I have just now (almost) completed backing up the entire first page of the Visual Architectonics thread! (I do not make full, or even sparing, use of the exclamation mark! 'round here)

Now, all there is left for me to do is bide my time, gain some favor among the illuminati, and become a modulator, for the sole reason in which all that I have contributed stands the test of time, (and foils the internet's dread 'red-x') OR... I can just ring up a mod and ask them politely if they can tolerate the menial task of helping me fix what's been broke, and where. I'll weigh my options.

In the mean, here's one of my favorite "own" post:

This was attached to your image above, Zooks...

(2+3+7)/4=3

Since the means to know
is inherent for eight seconds
that might not matter.

http://www.allbreedsblog.com/wp-cont...olis-mn190.jpg

I thought the pic was nice, and a sombre reminder of the sad demise of the miners that never made it home in New Zealand this week...
.

Yes indeed, Zooks. It is.

http://data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lc5f9g...8ifto1_500.jpg
This image provided by NASA shows the Aurora Borealis taken from the Inter-
national Space Station taken by astronaut Douglas Wheelock. A solar array
from the station can be seen at top. NASA will again attempt to launch
Space Shuttle Discovery no earlier than Dec. 3 at about 2:52 a.m. EST.
-- (AP Photo/NASA)

- - -

(not that it matters, but I've just learned among Texas's myriad and voluminous list of nicknames, the "Coal Star State" is among them.)

Do something awesome,
wonderful & terrible,
again & again.

Longest Monster Truck Jump!!!September 7, 2010
by Joe Sylvester

This accomplishment was a result of planning and preparations by me, my crew, and my family over the past couple years. We made it happen despite many setbacks and hurdles.

The trouble started one week before we began the testing for the jump. After hitting the very last jump of the last show I was doing before my world record testing, the Chevrolet engine in BAD HABIT let loose and completely blew up leaving me without a motor. Thanks to John Kyle and APD Racing Engines in Genoa, OH, BAD HABIT was back up and running with a newer, stronger, better running motor than ever!

With the new motor in the truck, me and my two crew members Kyle and Scott got on the road to Columbus, PA. We arrived at the Miller Farm, site of the Cornfield 500, around 5pm Monday evening and while Kyle and Scott got the truck ready for Tuesday’s testing, Blair and I finished preparing the take off jump. Speed tests went well on Tuesday but the first jump test did not. With my new APD engine not even at full throttle, I hit the take off ramp and flew about 60 feet high in the air and landed straight down on the front of the truck at the 195 foot mark. The impact ripped the right front wheel off BAD HABIT sending it into five violent flips. After the truck came to rest around the 300 foot mark, the front axle housing was bent, the body was completely destroyed, the wheelie bar and sway bar assembly was completely ripped off the back of the chassis, a shock shaft was bent, a 4-link bar was bent, a tire was flat, the front tie rod was bent and ripped off, and a front steering ram was torn apart. Not to mention I had one heck of a headache. Although most would have thrown in the towel after a crash like this, we put our heads down and got to work, 17 hours a day until Sunday to be exact. Big thanks to Kyle, Scott, Mike, my family, and the Cornfield 500 staff for all lending a helping hand to getting BAD HABIT back together in time for the big jump on Sunday.

After heavy rains all day and night Saturday, it was looking doubtful that it was going to be dry enough for the jump Sunday. The sun came through and the winds picked up and the track dried out very well in time for the jump. After making a couple runs past the great crowd and a short speed pass down the runway, I took to the newly redesigned take off ramp without hesitation. I would also like to thank Gary Bauer for his help rebuilding my takeoff ramp so that we could avoid another disaster like Tuesday. Wound out to about 75 mph, BAD HABIT flew through the air perfectly and landed at 197 feet which would not be enough to beat the current record. The truck was still in good shape and after letting it cool down a bit and changing the pitch of the takeoff just a little; I took to the ramp for a second try at the record. Hitting almost 79mph on this run, the truck once again flew through the air perfectly and this time landed at 208 feet! A New World Record!

This has been a dream come true and I can’t thank everyone enough who has helped and supported me through the entire process!! Watch out for more on the edge stunts in the future from Joe Sylvester Motorsports and the BAD HABIT Monster Truck!


http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ord-jump03.jpg

...in case anybody wants to "friend" Bad Habit Bad Habit Monster Truck Racing | Facebook

"friend"ing Princey Stone
is as far as I can go
to things non-human.

...I guess I could "like" another Bad Habit without too many qualms.

Free Willie! Why do they bother this nice old guy? Is he hurting somebody? Not to mention I like his musical stuff.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...freewillie.jpg

Willie Nelson charged again :(
SIERRA BLANCA, Texas - A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.
Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks says the bus pulled into the Sierra Blanca, Texas, checkpoint about 9 a.m. Friday. Brooks says an officer smelled pot when a door was opened and a search turned up marijuana.

Brooks says the Hudspeth County sheriff was contacted and Nelson was among three people arrested. Sheriff Arvin West didn't immediately return a phone message left at his home Friday, but he told the El Paso Times that Nelson claimed the marijuana was his. The singer was held briefly a $2,500 bond before being released.

Nelson spokeswoman Elaine Schock declined to comment when contacted via e-mail by The Associated Press.

6 ounces? personal use, surely for Willie, for a weekend?

My vehicle's windshield yesterday morning:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...DSC_0969-1.jpg

23753

Shifting focuses
through transparent surfaces
is good for your eyes.

Ice flakes seem somewhat Mandelbrotic, also.

Mandelbrotic. That's an enjoyable word to enunciate clearly.

ring,
I was just prowling around the 'net and this one I found reminded me of your pic above:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...persLakeAB.jpg
Peppers Lake, Alberta Photo and caption by Leo Raymaakers
A reed caught my eye while walking along the shores of Peppers Lake in Alberta and the frost on the reed reminded me of leaves. I placed my camera on the ice to take this photograph.

That's a great picture!
For a subject so frigid,
it's aspect is warm.

---------- Post added at 07:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 AM ----------

Thinking out loud here:
Are my fellows all aware
we've just three dozen?

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim//20...Scoreboard.gif

In light of that, I have nothing inspiring to say at this moment but I'll post anyway.

---------- Post added at 10:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 PM ----------

What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?

Make me one with everything.




...attributed to Merlin EV Grieve: A memorial for Merlin