Back and Foreground

By Harley White posted 04-02-2021 17:12

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A bright foreground star isn’t enough to distract from the grandeur of the galaxy UGC 3855, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Back and Foreground

One day in a dialogue I came to see
how people can contrast perceptually
for either the sound or their vision may be
the faculty forefront as sensory key.

A foreground and background are always at play
in music of Mozart or art by Monet
plus flickering thoughts in our mindful ballet
which dance through mentation in fleeting array.

The locus on which we may focus could seem
a random selection from consciousness stream
or something mysterious likened to dream
fortuitous as its ephemeral theme.

Within Hubble image one clearly can spy
a grand spiral galaxy, while further nigh
there shines a bright star which is much closer by
as seen in the spotlight through telescope eye.

The galaxy’s found in what’s titled the Lynx,
a flummoxing name like the riddle of Sphinx,
for this constellation is not what one thinks
because it was charted for rift amid brinks,

particularly as the gap out in space
between Ursa Major and Auriga’s place
though not for embodiment of feline grace
but rather the creature’s sharp-sightedness ace.

Acuity visual so it’s been said
is needed to glimpse such a faint stellar spread,
a spiral distinct from where earthlings were bred
beyond Milky Way and the planet we tread.

Imagine a star constellation as cone
or funnel in sector of sky where the zone
has infinite depths with space objects now shown
through optics to early observers unknown.

The heavenly bodies that stargazers knew
back then were a fraction of what we can view
at present in ‘foreground’ as what they construe
to be or not be universally true—

although I’ve the notion that researchers guess
ofttimes as to ‘backgrounds’ that they would assess
as certainties cosmic, of which I confess
I’m skeptical, evermore seeking ‘unless’…

~ Harley White

* * * * * * * * *

Some sources of inspiration were the following…

The Modest Galaxy…
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2105a/

Who Gets Mystified? Hubble Captures the Grandeur of a Cosmic Beauty…
https://scitechdaily.com/who-gets-mystified-hubble-captures-the-grandeur-of-a-cosmic-beauty/

Hubble Snaps Beautiful Image of UGC 3885…
http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-image-ugc-3885-09304.html

Image explanation ~ A bright foreground star isn’t enough to distract from the grandeur of the galaxy UGC 3855, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. While this foreground star is incredibly bright to Hubble’s eye, it does not outshine the details of the background galaxy. Many young blue stars are sprinkled throughout the circular patterns of UGC 3855’s arms, contrasted and complemented by dark lanes of dust also following the spiral structure. UGC 3885 is a spiral galaxy approximately 180 million light-years away. Located in the constellation of Lynx, it is a cosmic beauty to behold.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Walsh

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