Starship Asterisk*

Boomer12k wrote:I am sorry, but with a picture like this it is hard not to get religious...

:---(===) *

Beyond wrote:Man, that is one-heck-of-a vantage point Why, it's just about purr-fect

Boomer12k wrote:I am sorry, but with a picture like this it is hard not to get religious...

Jon-in-FL wrote:
Does it point to the true north pole or the magnetic pole. And if the true north pole,why?

neufer wrote:
[c]. http://video.pbs.org/video/1636852466/[/c]


<<Carefull calculations made from Hollar's drawing of Shakespeare's 1613 Globe Theatre showed the stage to have faced about 48 degrees east of north, that is, about the same relation to summer solstice sunrise as Stonehenge.>> - p. 256 Shakespeare the Evidence by Ian Wilson

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/s/stonehenge.html wrote: .
<<King James I (1566-1625), ordered the first authoritative study of Stonehenge, when instructing his Surveyor-General of Works, and great architect, Inigo Jones to survey the structure to determine how it got there. Jones' first conclusion was that Stonehenge was constructed with such design and beauty that it could not have been built by the Druids as previously thought. The Druids and others of the time were considered barbaric, unskilled people. Jones concluded that Stonehenge had to be constructed by civilized people who were skilled in architectural design and mathematics. Inigo Jones died on summer solstice: June 21, 1652.>>

[list][list]The Tempest > Act IV, scene I[/list]
PROSPERO: Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
[list]. As I foretold you, were all spirits and
. Are melted into air, into thin air:
. And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
. The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
. The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
. Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
. And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
. As dreams are made on, and our little life
. Is rounded with a sleep.[/list][/i][/color][/list]

Jon-in-FL wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:
I am sorry, but with a picture like this it is hard not to get religious...

Seems to me the aurora would be "a light in the window" for Wotan [or the other gods] to find their way home.

RedFishBlueFish wrote:The image would be more effective if it was not too large to fit on the screen of most monitors.

RJN wrote:I just fixed the broken image link. (Sorry.) About the image size -- I am experimenting with keeping the image width on the main page at 960 pixels since that is on the order of a typical pixel width of a browser window in 2012 and it also seems to be the pixel width of my iPad 1 window in landscape mode. Long images like this have always been a bit of a problem since the page looks sparse if the image is kept to a standard pixel height. In long image cases like this we used to put the text beside the image, but now that might break many of the APOD mirrors that parse the standard format. That said, an immediate exception to this will be tomorrow's entry (unless breaking news pushes that APOD further into the future). - RJN

JohnD wrote:"The Henge will harness the Midnight Sun at the Arctic Circle." Harness? How?

"It is inspired by the mythical world of eddic poem Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress)." So far so literary, but the saga makes no mention of stone circles or towers, or any construction like this, so it is a modern invention.

This is either commercial madness and greed, Disneyland on Ice or World of Warcraft, to attract tourists, or else a "re-imagining" of Old Nordic religion and astrology, in which case good luck to you, but this has absolutely nothing to do with astronomy.

Chris Peterson wrote:

JohnD wrote:
"The Henge will harness the Midnight Sun at the Arctic Circle."

• Harness? How?

By surrounding it visually from a certain perspective.

Chris Peterson wrote:

JohnD wrote:
"It is inspired by the mythical world of eddic poem Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress)." So far so literary, but the saga makes no mention of stone circles or towers, or any construction like this, so it is a modern invention.

Of course it's a modern invention. Inspired by an ancient saga.
That doesn't mean copied from.

Chris Peterson wrote:

JohnD wrote:
This is either commercial madness and greed, Disneyland on Ice or World of Warcraft, to attract tourists, or else a "re-imagining" of Old Nordic religion and astrology, in which case good luck to you, but this has absolutely nothing to do with astronomy.

The image references the path of the Sun over the year and it references the aurora. Both are of astronomical significance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomon wrote:
<<The gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow.
Gnomon (γνώμων) is an ancient Greek word meaning "indicator", "one who discerns," or "that which reveals.">>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome wrote:
<<A gnome is a diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characteristics have been reinterpreted to suit the needs of various story-tellers, but it is typically said to be a small, humanoid creature that lives underground.

The word comes from Renaissance Latin gnomus, which first appears in the works of 16th Century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus. He is perhaps deriving the term from Latin gēnomos (itself representing a Greek γη-νομος, literally "earth-dweller"). In this case, the omission of the ē is, as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) calls it, a blunder. Alternatively, the term may be an original invention of Paracelsus. Paracelsus uses Gnomi as a synonym of Pygmæi, and classifies them as earth elementals. He describes them as two spans high, very reluctant to interact with humans, and able to move through solid earth as easily as humans move through air.

The chthonic spirit has precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, often guarding mines and precious underground treasures, notably in the Germanic dwarves and the Greek Chalybes, Telchines or Dactyls.

The English word is attested from the early 18th century. Gnomes are used in Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock". The creatures from this mock-epic are small, celestial creatures which were prudish women in their past-lives, and now spend all of eternity looking out for prudish women (in parallel to the guardian angels in Catholic belief).>>

nstahl wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:I am sorry, but with a picture like this it is hard not to get religious...

Not for me it isn't. The monuments are man-made. The aurora is natural, and well-explained, not supernatural.

Boomer12k wrote: But they didn't know that back then....

Boomer12k wrote:

nstahl wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:I am sorry, but with a picture like this it is hard not to get religious...

Not for me it isn't. The monuments are man-made. The aurora is natural, and well-explained, not supernatural.

But they did not know that back then....

the recently deployed monuments of Arctic Henge

owlice wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:

nstahl wrote: Not for me it isn't. The monuments are man-made. The aurora is natural, and well-explained, not supernatural.

But they did not know that back then....

Back when??

the recently deployed monuments of Arctic Henge