PERSEIDS UNSEEN
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter.” John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820) Once again, tonight, Earth is passing through the debris trail of Comet Swift-Tuttle. This year, though, I don't expect to see any Perseid meteors, for three reasons: (1) the sky, where I live on the Southern California coast, is currently clouding up every night with low stratus moving in from the cold Pacific Ocean; (2) from my home, just two miles from L.A. International Airport, light pollution keeps me from seeing anything dimmer than first magnitude stars and planets; and (3) even...
Coronal Mass Ejection
My Facebook messages are being gobbled up By those ghostly Northern Lights That inch above the treetops Fading in and out Snatching words sent by my friend Stripping words right out of Facebook I wouldn’t mind so much If they’d put on a real show With dancing reds and greens But these ghostly comings and goings In plain white Aren’t worth missing My Facebook friend By Joan Chamberlin, Maine, U.S.A. Comments You need JavaScript to be able to post comments You need to be logged in to leave a comment Click Here to Login
AROUND THE SUN
Time flowing, Sun, the same, People evolving, Cosmic game. Andrei Dorian Gheorghe, Romania The Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM) invites you to see two small cosmopoetic stories based on photographic visions of the Sun, which are separated in time by almost 50 years: The first vision is a romantic one and was made by Nicolae Tudor in the 1960s, being connected to the Danube River: Old Photo-Memories from the Lower Danube http://www.cosmopoetry.ro/oldphotomemoriesfromthelowerdanube/ The second vision is connected to the ISS transits over the Sun’s disk in May 2011, and demonstrates the technical progress of humanity. It was...
Crescent Without Borders
Faintly gleams a new-born crescent to the seekers of the light; Who will see that early portent, on this pristine August night? Month by month, through countless ages, man has sought the Moon’s rebirth; Month by month her cycle guides us, on an ever-changing Earth. On each continent and island, watchers of the crescent blend, On a planet without borders, hope and vision without end. “Sing the wide-winged Moon!” cried Homer, watching from his distant sky; “Soothingly thy smile,” wrote Goethe, “spreadest round me, far and nigh.” Watchers of the sky, all poets, may you wax and never wane, Young...
Total Lunar Eclipse
During the evening of the total lunar eclipse of 2011.06.15 I was at the National Rugby Stadium in Bucharest to see matches from the International Rugby Board Nations Cup. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy, as if the eclipsed lunar sphere did not want to be compared with an oval ball. But my friend Valentin Grigore (president of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy - SARM), placed on a hill at 90 km distance from Bucharest, was much luckier and could watch and photograph the phenomenon. So this haiga is a combination between two different feelings, materialized in his astrophotography...
