Tuesday, 20. November 2007
It’s not Hailey’s, but Comet Holmes may be worth a view

You remeber: Comet 17P/Holmes shocked astronomers on Oct. 24, 2007, with a spectacular eruption. In less than 24 hours, the 17th magnitude comet brightened by a factor of nearly a million, becoming a naked-eye object in the evening sky. (Related Entry: Comet Holmes Undergoes Huge Outburs)

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Last night I searched the sky, there was the comet, a kind of blurry smudge, quite distinct in appearance from the nearby twinkling stars. There is a great deal of light pollution in my neighborhood; even so, I could see it with naked eyes. With binoculars, I could then make out much greater detail.

You too can see Comet Holmes and it does not take previous knowledge of astronomy to find it. I hope that many families will venture out on a clear night to observe it because this comet should not be missed.

Although Comet Holmes is now fading to the limits of naked-eye visibility, tonight provides a good time to the sky show, as the comet passes right in front of Mirfak, the brightest star in the constellation Perseus. The map below helps you locate the fuzzball in relation to the easily recognizable "W" of Cassiopeia's chair in northern skies.

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It is easy to distinguish the comet from the stars. The comet is blurry, whereas the stars twinkle. If you can do so, look at the comet through binoculars or a telescope. That way you may even see the beginnings of a tail, which a few astronomers have already noticed.

Check out also SpaceWeather.com's 20-page gallery of photos and their Interactive World Map of Comet Photos.
Category: Astrology & Astronomy |




News & Stories

Accursed be thy name ... by Times Online.
Fed up with your boss’s ludicrous demands? Wasted a day waiting for a builder who never showed up? Beaten to a promotion by a colleague who knows sweet Fanny Adams about the business? Discovered that your boyfriend is sleeping with your mother? What you need is a good curse. No, I don’t mean “bloody ’ell, I’m right ’acked off, I am!” I mean a real curse, one that comes foaming from the mouth like a spurt of sulphuric acid. Something with a bit of bite behind it. And of course the backing of an all-powerful deity to make it happen.

Ancient Tibetan science still necessary today by The Arkansas Traveller.
... Kalsang said that Tibetan medicine was 2500 years old and fundamentally based on Buddhist principles. They believe that the main cause for disease is ignorance. Kalsang defined astroscience as "the ancient art of calculation and interpretation of celestial phenomena." Basically there are five elements that correspond to the five vital organs mainly; wood relates to the liver, fire with the heart, earth with the spleen, metal with the lungs, and water with kidneys. "Things that happen to us involve our own karma; nobody can fix the problem but you. It's all you. For example, once your life is in danger, it is good to save some one whose life is also in danger," Kalsang said.

Maya Rituals Caused Ancient Decline in Big Game
by National Geographic News.
Maya rulers' growing demand for animals of symbolic value may have caused a decline in big game, like jaguars, in ancient Latin America, a new study suggests. Kitty Emery, an archaeologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has studied 80,000 animal bones found in 25 Maya trash mounds to map the effects of ancient hunting on animal populations over 4,000 years.

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How Aleister Crowley introduced the iconic gray alien by Associated Content.
It is common within UFO and abduction narratives to find references to Whitley Strieber's groundbreaking and now classic book, Communion.
Although there were several abduction oriented books before its publication, and many varying depictions of the gray alien, for whatever reason, that particular book and its cover image seemed to finally cement the UFO/abduction phenomenon and the image of the alien into our consciousness.

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Ancient Egypt's fantastic and weird history by The Telegraph.
• Pyramids were a big signal to tell grave robbers where the pharaoh's treasure was hidden. That's why, by Tutankhamun's time, pharaohs were buried underground.
• Tombs held everything a God would need in the next life, including a toilet. Even the pharaoh's cats were mummified to keep him company.

The 16th century book that shows how vicars abused people's fear of witchcraft by Daily Mail.
A 16th century Kent housewife narrowly missed being burnt at the stake for being a witch after rebuking a vicar's son for abusing her dog, a newly-discovered book reveals. The remarkable story of Margaret Simons, her over-exuberant pet and a superstitious clergy is detailed in a 16th century counterblast against the witch-hunting fever which was sweeping Europe at the time. In "The Discoverie of Witchcraft", published in 1584 and found recently in the attic of a house in Nottinghamshire, author Reginald Scott goes far beyond the radical thinkers of his age by maintaining there were no witches in contemporary England and that all those executed for the "crime" were innocent.

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Climate change by Jupiter by Financial Post.
The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth.
So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences.

For some, their future is in the cards by The Inquirer and Mirror.

When strange things happen for no apparent reason, some of us shrug them off and some of us seek an answer in the cards. Tarot cards are traditionally seen as symbols of the spirit world’s influence on our lives, especially this time of year. People who believe in the interpretation of the symbols on the cards say whereas tarot used to be seen as part of the occult, now it is being seen more as a system of symbols for personal growth and development. “It’s really just a snapshot of the moment, an insight into all the things that are going on in people’s lives”.

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A quiet walk in the spirit by Rapid City Journal.
A short trip to Sturgis may be the first step in a journey to deeper spirituality. Visitors to the First United Methodist Church, 1755 Ballpark Road, are greeted by what looks like a flat, large circular design painted on concrete. But the image is much more than that. It is a prayer labyrinth, a tool used since the Fourth century to symbolically represent the pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything
by The Telegraph.
An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. "Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."

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Crop Circles - A Complex Beauty by The Alien Seeker News.
In the incredible world of unexplained phenomenon, crop circles are in their own class. Pleasing to the eye and challenging to the mind, they have spawned online galleries, photo books, new mathematical concepts, and advanced circuit design. Over 10,000 circles have been recorded in recent years, worldwide, with the circles averaging 150 feet in diameter.

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Pilgrimage to magic mountain by Times Online.
The air hangs heavy, thick with incense. Candles litter the ground. Bare-chested men, glistening with sweat, huddle together. Ethereal shrieks ring out. Women, their eyes closed, their faces taut, suck deeply on cigars. A wizened shaman, a red bandanna around his head, clutches the neck of a beautiful girl, his knife poised midair, ready to strike. Men and women lie entwined, their bodies dusted with flowers.

Mean streets hold little magic for young African 'witches' by International Herald Tribune.
In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are identified as witches and beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of children living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo's rubble-strewn capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families - often a rationale for not having to feed or care for them.

Some news-links do not last long. In this case please send me a note.
Category: News & Stories |


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