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Blue Planetary
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‘The Southerner’ of pink and blue
is brightest nebula in view,
‘Blue Planetary’ also called,
amidst the constellation sprawled
that Sir John Herschel also knew.
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Centaurus is its name debut,
discovered in the rendezvous
of palish sapphire reinstalled
‘The Southerner’.
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A rich blue color is its hue
resembling Neptune in the brew
of pics astronomers enthralled
amongst the many that were hauled
by Voyager, ‘twas number two,
‘The Southerner’.
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~ Harley White
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* * * * * * * * *
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The poem is in the form of a rondeau…
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NGC 3918
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3918
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Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 3918.
Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA.
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NGC 3918 is a bright planetary nebula in the constellation Centaurus, nicknamed the “Blue Planetary” or “The Southerner”. It is the brightest of the far southern planetary nebulae. This nebula was discovered by Sir John Herschel in March 1834 and is easily visible through small telescopes. The round or even slightly oval diameter is telescopically between 8 and 10 arcsec, though deep images extends this to about 19 or 20 arcsec. More surprising is the beautiful rich blue color that looks much like the colored images of Neptune taken by Voyager 2 in 1989…
#poetry