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This image was produced with a RCOS half meter telescope and a SBIG STL-11000 camera.
Exposure times: 948 minutes Luminance, 180 minutes Red, 108 minutes Green and 216 minutes Blue (All 1X1)
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The Crab Nebula (M1) in Taurus
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The Iceman Can Wait
Written in 1939 and first produced in 1946, Eugene O'Neil's masterpiece, "The Iceman Cometh", presented the world, at first glance, through the lens of a bottle. The play's power came from the loose, but very real, brotherhood formed by patrons of a drinking establishment who have a warm comradeship built on fantasy and illusion to bolster their sense of humanity. However, the collection of personalities chained to their barstools aren't the real losers, it's finally revealed, when one character, chilled by sobriety, intervenes and attempts to save the others from their alcoholic haze with a cup of truth. Instead, O'Neil's entire premise, simply stated, is not about booze. It's directed to those who try to confront life without dreams and concludes that they are inviting something totally unbearable- existence without hope and a future filled with discouragement.
Living life on a wooden ship that's confined within a bottle, humanity floats in a vast ocean of the Universe surrounded by storms that could utterly engulf us. On board our vessel, the crew and passengers grow increasingly restless but there are no life rafts or preservers to take us from this place to another. Thus, the reality of our situation, if viewed totally stone sober, could be considered grim, by some measurements (I hope you are following my perspective).
So, if you have not attended the play, read the book or watched a movie adaptation you are encouraged to do so when time is available. It distills the virtues that artists, authors and, yes, astrophotographers produce to quench our thirst for places and things beyond our grasp.
Our investments of time, our resources freely given, and our willingness to ignore the odds against success, combined, buys a drink for our patrons so the Iceman can wait, for them and us, a bit longer.
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