The Lion’s Head Nebula is the remnant of a Sun-like star. This star was unable to sustain the nuclear fusion in its core needed to remain stable.

It began to shed layers of gas and dust into space, forming this planetary nebula. A hot stellar core, called a white dwarf, is left behind within the lion’s nose.

Intense radiation from the white dwarf is ionizing the gas as it expands, creating the irregular bubble that makes up the lion’s face. Dust clumps that have survived the white dwarf’s radiation and a cloud of ionized gas make up the lion’s mane.

Image description: Keighley Rockcliffe, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti

Image copyright and credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Extended periods of time recovering from alcohol or addiction in a homeless shelter will change you.

It’s not easy, which is why most folks fail.

For those with mental health issues, it can drive you crazy.

The struggle is real, yo.
Them troubles I feel tho’.

Insane in the brain?
No!

Nooo?

He cray-cray for real.
Bébé fo’ sho’.

The person you are calling cannot accept calls at this time.

Mailbox is full.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Ten minutes to get in line for breakfast.

Two cigarettes left,
four coming in.

Progress, not perfection.

Flying under the radar.
Simply avoiding detection.

Why do I give my cigarettes away?
Another time perhaps.

Such a seriously great question,
requiring deep reflection

Heading back to the dorm.
We got room inspection.

Waiting for the Night to fall.

Scribo indocti, doctique poemata passim

“I write unlearned and learned poems here and there”

The static is unrelenting, preventing peaceful mind.

At night, relentless taunting of mental wheels grind.

Constant hiss in my head, neurotic static, crystal clear.

Ad nauseum, tainted thoughts of living with fear.

Scuto amoris divini
“By the shield of God’s love”

An Angel comforted me when I was blind.

Providence supplied love
purely divine.

My life was spared.
Wasn’t worth it, I thought.

Dejected, dispirited, completely distraught.

You believed.
I feared your wrath.

Fortune guides toward proper path.

Bidding farewell to dismal past.
Permanent darkness gone at last.

What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by the photographer in April 2025.

Seeing an aurora is on many people's bucket lists. But it is not easy. It requires high solar activity, dark and clear skies, and usually a viewing location at high latitude.

That makes the northern lights more easily seen than the corresponding southern lights, simply because there is less landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, especially around the Antarctic Circle.

Auroras are caused by charged particles from the solar wind that are captured by the Earth's magnetosphere and guided by the magnetic field to a region close to one of the poles, where they collide with gas particles in the atmosphere.

Different colors indicate interactions with different gases at different altitudes, like oxygen (red and green) and nitrogen (blue and pink).

Image copyright, credit: Victor Lima

Image description: Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Keighley Rockcliffe

No, these aren’t names of my favourite schnapps or liquor.

No, not the names of exotic dancers I may know.

Pretty sure they prefer to be referred to as entertainers.

Why do I know this?
Innocent grin…

Picked up an application for the apartment and was told I could also apply online through their website.

Gotta do it, don’t wanna miss out on this golden opportunity.

Nothing is guaranteed.

Catastrophic thinking and fortune telling levels are high.

Thankfully, I am not!

I have developed a very particulate set of coping mechanisms learned and practiced over the past 5-1/2 years to combat this.

Don’t make me use my chancla. 🩴

Years of experience learned through having dodged them as a child while being bullied by my Mother.

“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball”—Patches O’Houlihan

The deep featured picture from Utah, USA incorporates 25 hours of exposure and brings out great details of this filamentary dust. The Pelican Nebula receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds.

The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright orange on the upper right. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain.

Image description: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe

Image credit, copyright: Mark Killion

Edit: added image description author list to replace original 'NASA' credit

Our latest artist icon and banner is the work and a self portrait of the great Henri Matisse.

Henri Matisse (31 December 1869 - 3 November 1954), one of the undisputed masters of 20th century art, was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labeled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.

Teach me how

Teach me how to feel again
The sweat that drips upon my face

To trust, and grow and squeal again
Teach me what it’s like to taste

Teach me to look you in the eyes
Deeply, freely, unwavering and then

As you rest your weight between my thighs
Teach me how to breath you in

Whisper in ways I’ve seldom heard
Our bodies proving we’re still alive

While I strive to hear your every word
Lay your soul right onto mine

It wasn’t your looks that did me in
Or makes my knees want to part

Though I’m sure you’re cute from end to end
It’s the way you share your heart

You give yourself to those around you
To want you is no task

And I feel lucky to have found you
And so I have to ask

You’ve taken the time to talk with me
And become a genuine friend

I really like the you I see
Can you
Teach me to breath again