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Nebulous Cave
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A cavernous nebula cloaks the sky
in Cepheus’ constellation on high
called Sharpless one five five or Caldwell nine
more commonly ‘Cave’, emission design,
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diffuse in its dim caliginous mien
as if hiding secrets behind a screen,
or maybe a portal to passageway
through cosmic dimensional overlay.
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With radius of thirty-five light years,
its ebon evokes Mankind’s primal fears
of lightlessness causing a vision lack
and thus to be lost in abyssal black.
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Its Cave nickname came about for curved arc
which looks a lot like a cavern mouth dark,
unless seen in infrared, shedding light
upon what’s perceived with usual sight.
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This nebula brings to mind Plato’s famed
allegory as a dialogue framed,
in which captives chained to wall of a cave
view shadows projected into enclave
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from in back, as reality discerned,
so these beings believe that they have learned
at least to trust what their eyes recognize…
Nonetheless, how little they realize!
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~ Harley White
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Some sources of inspiration were the following…
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Allegory of the cave (Wikipedia)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
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Plato ~ The Allegory of the Cave ~ translated by Shawn Eyer…
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/seyer/files/plato_republic_514b-518d_allegory-of-the-cave.pdf
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The Cave Nebula, an emission nebula in Cepheus…
http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/nebulae-clouds/the-cave-nebula-sh2-155-by-adam-block/
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Sh2-155 (Wikipedia)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh2-155
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The Cave Nebula in Infrared from Spitzer (APOD)…
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190611.html
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Image: File ~ Cave Finished v2.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cave_Finished_v2.jpg
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Explanation: The Cave Nebula (Sharpless 155 or Sh2-155) is a dim and very diffuse bright emission nebula surrounded by dust. It has a radius of about 35 light-years, and is located some 2400 light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. The nebula has gotten its nickname from the darker area, at the center left, which visually appears as a cave.
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Description: The Cave Nebula in the Hubble Palette (Sii, Ha, Oiii)…
Author: Urmymuse ~ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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#poetry