Perseid Meteor Shower

From Spaceweather.com:

...The Perseid meteor shower has begun. Although the display will not peak until August 12th and 13th, sky watchers are already counting as many as a dozen meteors per hour (including some nice fireballs) during the darkest hours before dawn. Rates could increase 5- to 10-fold when the shower reaches maximum on Sunday night and Monday morning. Advice: Get away from city lights. While many Perseids will be bright enough to see from light-polluted urban areas, the shower's full grandeur is reserved for places with dark and starry skies. This is a good weekend to go camping...

For skymaps and observing hints, go to spaceweather.com for all the info.

Angel releases album

Sinead O’Connor releases ’Theology’ album 15 years after tearing pope photo

The always fascinating Sinead O'Conner has released a new album, titled 'Theology', inspired by religion and Biblical scripture:

"...There’s a lot that’s beautiful about religion," she said. "It’s just you get some ... nutters that misinterpret it..." Islam "essentially at its core is a very beautiful religion," she said. "You’ve got a very small bunch of fruitcakes bringing that religion into disrepute. Same in the States, you’ve got people like George Bush bringing Christianity into disrepute..."

It figures that a woman with the vocal cords of an angel would come up with something like this. I've always been mesmerized by her voice. I think she'd reduce me to a quivering blob of jelly, just reading the lunch specials in some greasy spoon diner.

Witch's Broom studied by Hubble

Veil Nebula Pierced by Hubble's Gaze

Saw a post about this over at toomanytribbles. The Veil Nebula (aka: 'The Witch's Broom') has been studied in detail by the Hubble Space telescope:

...The Hubble close-ups reveal the rope-like filaments of gas in the nebula, which resulted from enormous amounts of dusty debris plowing into gaseous surroundings. Thicker filaments of material result from viewing the supernova's shock wave edge-on, while more wispy and diffuse views correspond to a face-on view of other parts of the shock wave from Earth...

Check out the link for a number of great photos.

A great Lugh/Lammas

Just wanted to say what a great Lugh/Lammas/MidSummer I had! Spent the evening of the Aug 28th at the festival held at the Center for Symbolic Studies. They did a great job this year, and the Wicker Man they built was impressive. I was asked to call the North Quarter this year, which was a real honor. Congrats to Hrana and all the rest for making this Sabbat memorable.

The next evening was spent with my fellow coveners at a BBQ & ritual hosted at the home of our High Priestess. It was a fun ritual and the food was great. I got to crack my whips a bit, doing a 'black lite' routine under ultra-violet lights using my fluorescent whips. Although the day started out rainy, by evening we were welcomed by the stars and bright Moon.

(I want to thank Moya and Jess for the pics of the Wicker Man.)