A recent CD purchase was made, based on hearing some tracks on Sirius radio late one night. Our car has satellite radio, and when travelling back and forth on astronomy nights, it is my best friend. The classical station has a program called Millennium of Music, which often features music of the Renaissance. The CD has to be ordered from France, and it took a while to arrive. What we received was a two-disc set, wrapped inside a 5 x 8 hardcover book. The notes are a virtual mini-course on music in France between 1560-1650, mostly songs of love, or rather love lost. The music is a wonderful addition to our large collection of Renaissance music, from a time and place I knew nothing about. I can highly recommend purchasing it.
Speaking of astronomy nights, I managed one on Wednesday. It was a beautiful night, and mixed in with my usual amount of fairly small and faint objects were two giants of the heavens. NGC eg 4565 is a galaxy seen edge on, and is a spectacular sight in a small telescope. It's always a thrill to see something like this when one has been viewing much smaller and fainter objects.
With its bright centre, vast size, and prominent dark lane, eg 4565 is a marvel to view. The line of five stars to the right is very obvious, too.
A second major object viewed was Messier 5, a distant star cluster, called a globular cluster because of its shape. These clusters orbit our galaxy outside the plane, and often reveal hundreds of stars, especially to 12" scope like mine.
Messier 5, a globular cluster seen last Wednesday night.
I am about to make a major investment in a set of 6 new eyepieces. Right now I use a reliable but motley crew of eyepieces. With no travel plans for 2020, it seems the right time to invest in new eyepieces. Of course I must then scrub my mirror, too. It's been nearly 2 years since I did that.
Moving on to yet another topic (the final one for today), my Tarot card for this period (April 30th-June 21st) gave me an inspiring idea to try. Here is the card....
My guiding card for this semester.
The card shows the Grail Queen (a high enough card, but not a major arcana) standing within a seaside cave (my house for now), and spilling wine from the Grail. The wine flows into five different cracks in the floor pavement. According to Celtic tradition, these five paths represent the five senses as a path to the Grail. I like this path. Rather than starve myself, or walk to a cathedral on my knees, or flog myself occasionally, I am invited to use my five senses to walk the path towards Truth. I can do this!
So I took a notepad, and after some thought I jotted down my five favourite things for each sense. What emerged was a fairly good portrait of who and what I am. There were no surprises, but it would be a fun way to get to know someone you didn't know. Rather than give the whole show away, I thought I would present my findings one sense at a time. In this way you can do your own chart before seeing all of my answers. Today I will divulge what I chose for sight. These are things I could look at indefinitely, and have done so.
Sight:
1) Landscape/Cityscapes (favourites are Knight Peak, NM; Lake Penage from Hill #5; Detroit from Windsor.
2) Paintings (Bruegel).
3) People (Deb; family)
4) Telescope Views of the night sky.
5) Film (movies)
There you have the favourite things I love to look at. Next time join me for Hearing!
Mapman Mike
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