Starship Asterisk*

neufer wrote:

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rstevenson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:
I suppose I don't even mind off-topic discussions too much. But when there is just an off-topic pasting of another part of the internet, with no associated commentary or discussion provided in the actual words of the poster, I suppose it makes me grumpy. (To be honest, I probably lack ambition too, geck, but I haven't yet run out of vigour. I can't just sit around waiting for dear neufer to kark it, at least.)

Face it, Nit, Art is in the high of the be'older.

Rob

rstevenson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:
I suppose I don't even mind off-topic discussions too much. But when there is just an off-topic pasting of another part of the internet, with no associated commentary or discussion provided in the actual words of the poster, I suppose it makes me grumpy. (To be honest, I probably lack ambition too, geck, but I haven't yet run out of vigour. I can't just sit around waiting for dear neufer to kark it, at least.)

Face it, Nit, Art is in the high of the be'older.

Rob

Nitpicker wrote:I suppose I don't even mind off-topic discussions too much. But when there is just an off-topic pasting of another part of the internet, with no associated commentary or discussion provided in the actual words of the poster, I suppose it makes me grumpy. (To be honest, I probably lack ambition too, geck, but I haven't yet run out of vigour. I can't just sit around waiting for dear neufer to kark it, at least.)

geckzilla wrote:
As for myself, having participated in numerous quasi-off-topic discussions spanning several pages including ones on language usage and The Great Debate on the Morphology of a Certain Sportsball, I am usually unable to provide Art any criticism these days. I remember trying when I was more ambitious and full of vigor. You're just going to have to wait for the old man to kick the bucket if you're tired of him.

http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.12.xii.html wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

The Odyssey Book XII Translated by Samuel Butler

Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our adventures. "'So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you- heaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster. 'When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take.'"

Nitpicker wrote:Quasi off topic is not completely off topic. Happy to discuss the shape of horse/ass heads/asses.

Nitpicker wrote:Neufer, it was somewhat wittier when you brought up the Alexamenos graffito previously, in this 7yo topic:
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... os#p114189

But surely, Shirley, there are better avenues for your nuisance graffiti, than today's APOD discussion? Perhaps an avenue nearer to your home in Alexandria? You are wasting your not inconsiderable brilliance here on The Starship.

Ann wrote:
(So... do I take that to mean that you have a lot of
donkey head graffiti in Alexandria, Virginia?

• We Virginia Democrats do our best (in our purple state).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Name_and_symbols wrote:
<<The most common mascot symbol for the "Democrat Party" has been the donkey, or jackass. Andrew Jackson's enemies twisted his name to "jackass" as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However, the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, so the image persisted and evolved. Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast from 1870 in Harper's Weekly. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats, and the elephant to represent the Republicans.>>

neufer wrote:

Ann wrote:

neufer wrote: The Alexandria Virgaffito:

Your post evokes utter confusion on my part, although I can see one, quite farfetched, connection between the Horsehead Nebula and some 2,000-year-old donkey-head graffiti. But my response to Virgaffito is

• I know where you live...do you know where I live?

sbdeak@msn.com wrote:
Curious how the star spikes have been eliminated in some of your pictures. Are these being removed through digital manipulation?

Surely these photos are not taken with a refracting telescope.

Ann wrote:

neufer wrote:

douglas wrote:
Really, Art? [LOL]

The Alexandria Virgaffito:

Your post evokes utter confusion on my part, although I can see one, quite farfetched, connection between the Horsehead Nebula and some 2,000-year-old donkey-head graffiti. But my response to Virgaffito is

• I know where you live...do you know where I live?

Ann wrote:
If the Flame Nebula is first and foremost an emission nebula, that doesn't explain the yellow color of the Flame. I would guess that yellow and orange light from the newborn stars inside penetrates the nebula. But apparently Alnitak plays a part, too.

• Helium perhaps

http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/673903/view wrote:

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<<Helium emission and absorption spectra. When electrons in an element become excited (by heating), they enter higher energy orbits. When they return to their ground state they release the extra energy as light radiation at a specific wavelength. The wavelengths emitted by an element are characteristic of that element. A matching absorption spectrum occurs when light passes through a material and is absorbed by its atoms. The 12 lines of the visible helium spectrum correspond to wavelengths of 388.8, 447.1, 471.3, 492.1, 501.5, 504.7, 587.5, 667.8, 686.7, 706.5, 728.1 and 781.3 nanometres (nm). >>

neufer wrote:

douglas wrote:
Really, Art? [LOL]

The Alexandria Virgaffito:

Wikipedia wrote:
The Flame Nebula, designated as NGC 2024 and Sh2-277, is an emission nebula in the constellation Orion. It is about 900 to 1,500 light-years away.
The bright star Alnitak (ζ Ori), the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion, shines energetic ultraviolet light into the Flame and this knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula and this is what causes the dark network that appears in the center of the glowing gas.

At the center of the Flame Nebula is a cluster of newly formed stars,[2] 86% of which have circumstellar disks.[3] X-ray observations by the Chandra X-ray Observatory[4][5] show several hundred young stars, out of an estimated population of 800 stars.

steve wiggins wrote:
I've seen the horsehead on a clear night with binoculars when I was a meteorological technician at Quillayute airport. It was a difficult sighting but once you can make out the background nebulosity it shows quite clearly.

douglas wrote:
Really, Art? [LOL]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito wrote:

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<<The Alexamenos graffito (a.k.a. the graffito blasfemo, or blasphemous graffito) is a piece of Roman graffiti scratched in plaster on the wall of a room near the Palatine Hill in Rome, which has now been removed and is in the Palatine Hill Museum. No clear consensus has been reached on when the image was made. Dates ranging from the late 1st to the late 3rd century have been suggested, with the beginning of the 3rd century thought to be the most likely.

The graffito was discovered in 1857 when a building called the domus Gelotiana was unearthed on the Palatine Hill. The emperor Caligula had acquired the house for the imperial palace, which, after Caligula died, became used as a Paedagogium (boarding school) for the imperial page boys. Later, the street on which the house sat was walled off to give support to extensions to the buildings above, and it thus remained sealed for centuries.

The image depicts a human-like figure affixed to a cross and possessing the head of a donkey. In the top right of the image is what has been interpreted as either the Greek letter upsilon or a tau cross. To the left of the image is a young man, apparently intended to represent Alexamenos, a Roman soldier/guard, raising one hand in a gesture possibly suggesting worship. Beneath the cross is a caption written in crude Greek: ΑΛΕ ξΑΜΕΝΟϹ ϹΕΒΕΤΕ θΕΟΝ. ϹΕΒΕΤΕ can be understood as a variant spelling (possibly a phonetic misspelling) of Standard Greek ϹΕΒΕΤΑΙ, which means "worships". The full inscription would then be read as Ᾰλεξᾰ́μενος σέβεται θεόν, "Alexamenos worships [his] God". Several other sources suggest "Alexamenos worshiping a god", or similar variants, as the intended translation.

It seems to have been commonly believed at the time that Christians practiced onolatry (donkey-worship). That was based on the misconception that Jews worshipped a god in the form of a donkey, a claim made by Apion (30-20 BC – c. AD 45-48): "Apion ought to have had a regard to these facts; unless he had himself had either an asse’s heart, or a dog’s impudence: of such a dog I mean as they worship. For he had no other external reason for the lies he tells of us. As for us Jews, we ascribe no honor, nor power to asses;">>