An Optical Question

What do you all think of this? Do you think that A and B is different colours, or the same? Answer in a few days time. :)

Image taken from NASA Picture of the Day.

A Solar Eclipse

This image is of a solar eclipse sometime in August 11, 1999. I can't remember where it said it occurred already, though I don't think it would be hard to track down where from records readily available on the net; like I said, solar eclipses are rare events, and even more rarer for a one like this; this sort is called a total solar eclipse, one of three types. Those red fringes are actually the corona (outer layer of the sun) that are usually not seen due to being blanketed by radiant light from the sun. Coronal loops flare up on the surface creating those flame like shapes. They are like tongues of fire shooting up from the surface of the sun at incredible speeds. The moon having blocked out most of the light allows us to see these emissions clearly.

Bear in mind that one should always have proper eye protections ready at hand if one wants to go observe a solar eclipse. At certain points during the eclipse, the light from the sun can still harm our eyes.

Hee, I sound like a regular astronomer... I wish... :)

*edit* I remembered where I'd gotten this image from: the image was originally taken in France, and I'd gotten it from good old wikipedia! hehe. However, I also know that it is in one of the picture of the day webpages from NASA.

A Lunar Eclipse

This is a composite image of a lunar eclipse. The moon moves into the area where the earth's shadow (umbra) is, and gradually turns red due to refraction of light through the earth's atmosphere. I must say that I haven't had the privilege of watching a lunar eclipse unfold very often in my life. Probably only about three times over the past ten years? What I really want to see is a solar eclipse; rarer and much more dramatic. I have never seen a full solar eclipse before, only a partial one. And that was only once!

Does not smell like emo spirit... for once!

Hmm I realised that recently I have being excessively emo. Looking back over the past few posts, I saw quite a number of "smells like emo spirit". I like that tagline. Its like Nirvana all over again, only this time in the emo era; a bit of Carrabba mixed in with Cobain. For the uninitiated, that's the lead singer in Dashboard and Nirvana respectively. Alright, enough music nerdiness.

There was a time when I thought I would use this blog to post some nice pretty pictures of stars and galaxies. Or space objects in our own solar system: kinda like this one. The thing I love about this asteroid, which is essentially a lump of supersize rock floating around in space, is the crater marks all over it. Imagine this giant rock, its face searing wherever the sunlight touches like a clothes iron held too long on a shirt, and the extreme cold of the shadow gripping upon its dark side, hails of tiny metals crashing upon its once smooth bore surface as it moves through a belt of asteroids.

I love it because it speaks so much about our own lifes. I love it because it mirrors us going through our own little trials, our moments of extremes in both passion and ignorance, our failures, our scars, our endless wandering in search of meaning. It presents a show of strength in its sheer size as a facade, but is vulnerable as the craters testify. Sometimes, that is what we do as well. We walk around with a mask on our faces, our demenour veiled, our tongues censored. We walk as if we were in someone else's shoes, someone we want to be, someone we feel we ought to be. And sometimes, we even kid ourselves and believe it to be true. Is that why we have problems? Would we not have problems if we just live and not lie to ourselves? Would it all be well if we just believe that we are valued just the way we are, and we are not forgotten and insignificant in a world of so many people?

The asteroid continues its journey.

No Stars in the HKSAR

Hong Kong just doesn't have the sky for stars. As a star-deprived son of an overpopulated metropolis I journeyed down south. I still remember the very first time I laid eyes on the glorious tapestry of what must have been God's cape draped majestically across Heaven... I never gave it much thought.

But as I saw it each late night I return to my abode, I found myself bewildered by the sheer amount of tiny beacons that dot the night sky of my new home. Each with its distinct blue reddish silver pink, winking at me from the horizon, or piercingly staring from on high. Some clear moonless nights I would even see shadows of stardust (nebulae) displayed in the blank spaces between stars.

One day I decided that I would get a telescope one day when I have enough money. I would put it on my balcony at the back and just scope out each star one at a time. I would let my eyes roam across Heaven's jewels, God's own treasury.

Starphillia

I LOVE STARS...

Just in case it wasn't obvious enough!

It is their simple features, a simple speck of light, that when viewed all together, becomes a glorious multitude of colours that glides effortlessly across the night sky, literally explodes before my very eyes; a humbling experience.

S: Do you star gaze for hours and then see the stars 'moving' so to speak?
J: haha last time in the summer I would go outside into the back balcony, and on the side there I could climb onto the roof of the garage from which I could climb onto the roof of the house.
S: Wah nice!!!
J: I would sit there on the roof and just gaze; the view is spectacular. Yea it is very nice... and the stars in the summer is a lot more brighter and clearer than winter...

Yeah so I think I am quite an avid lover of the cosmic heavens... just in case you haven't noticed... =p

Star Sojourner

Once upon a time, I had a dream.

It was a dream set across continents, over rough waters, past mighty mountain ranges, through murky forest trails. I dreamt of travel, of a life of wandering, self-abandonment, self-isolation, self-imposed exile. I dreamt of taking what I can physically hold, and just leave where I was to go on a journey, bound for no where in particular, only following each days whims and the long road. I dreamt of lying down at night with the glorious tapestry of the Milky Way as my ceiling, the swaying grass my mattress, and the misty fog my blanket.

I dreamt the life of a sojourner, never staying long at any place, drawn almost compulsively to the road. Of meeting people one day, then leaving without a trace the next. Or perhaps next week. Perhaps a month. There would be no set rule, no permanency; just the whim, and the road.

Who knows, maybe some day I might go on such a journey.

Perhaps one day, with you...