Photo # 3 (Oct 2008)

NGC 6960: THE WITCH'S BROOM NEBULA

if you don't become speechless on a clear night when looking up into space you are not really being aware of the totality that is really there.
                           - Eckhart Tolle

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright star 52 Cygnus is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova.

We see ourselves reflected in the stars. We see ourselves reflected in nature, in all aspects of our world.

We must learn to see ourselves as part of the world, not just the world as part of ourselves. When we come to this appreciation - that we are an integral aspect of the world - we may then be able to save our world.

                                  - Daniel Benor, MD