A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish: Five pictures, six lists, and seventeen pictures were promoted
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted to featured status from 1 February through 7 February.Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
James B. Weaver(
nominated by
Coemgenus) James Baird Weaver was a member of the
United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States. After several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the
Greenback Party, which supported increasing the money supply and regulating big business. As the Greenback Party fell apart, a new left-wing third party, the
Populists, arose. Weaver helped to organize the party and was their nominee for President in
1892. Many party insiders, however, were wary of Weaver's association with the
Prohibition movement and preferred to remain uncommitted on the divisive issue.
I Never Liked You(
nominated by
Curly Turkey)I Never Liked You is an autobiographical
graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist
Chester Brown, originally serialized as Fuck in the pages of his comic book Yummy Fur. Brown was at the forefront of the 90s wave of autobiographical comics. Since cartoonists usually spent most of their days at the drawing table trying to eke out a living, here autobiography didn't mean high adventure, it meant the minutiae of human existence. These cartoonists put their own lives under the microscope, unflinchingly portraying their weird emotional states, sexual fantasies, and masturbatory habits. In I Never Liked You, Brown tells the story of his introverted teenage years in a Montreal suburb. He is painfully unable to express emotion, especially to women, including his dying mother and the girl next door he is interested in. The powerful story and minimalist style drew critical adulation and awards, so if you are in the mood to revisit your awkward adolescence, this is the book for you.
The Thrill Book(
nominated by
Mike Christie)The Thrill Book was a short-lived US
pulp magazine published by
Street & Smith in 1919. It was intended to carry "different" stories: this meant stories that were unusual or unclassifiable, which in practice often meant that the stories were
fantasy or
science fiction. Although The Thrill Book has been described as the first American pulp to specialize in fantasy and science fiction, this description is not supported by recent historians of the field, who regard it instead as a stepping stone on the path that ultimately led to Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, the first true specialized magazines in the fields of
weird fiction and science fiction respectively. Street & Smith cancelled the magazine after the sixteenth issue, dated October 15. A printers' strike has often been suggested as the reason.
William of Wrotham(
nominated by
Ealdgyth) William of Wrotham was a larger than life figure from the dramatic days of the English middle ages. When
Robin Hood roamed
Sherwood Forest, William was having action-packed adventures as...
Archdeacon of Taunton and "keeper of ports". Like the
Sheriff of Nottingham, William was a minion of
King John, usually depicted as so villainous that the
Magna Carta had to be forced upon him by his own rebellious barons. One of those rebels was William, who until that point had ably served John in a number of ecclesiastical and naval posts. After a brief time in exile, William was back in the good graces of John and his son and successor
Henry III. Chronicler
Roger of Wendover dubbed him one of John's "most wicked counsellors", but later historians called him a distinguished administrator.
67th Academy Awards(
nominated by
Birdienest81) Held in March 1995, sentimental favorite Forrest Gump won Best Picture over four better 1994 films and took away 6 wins out of 13 nominations. To this day, some insist it should have been
Pulp Fiction's year, and while the film catapulted
Quentin Tarantino to stardom, out of 6 nominations it only went home with Best Original Screenplay. Gump earned
Tom Hanks his second consecutive Best Actor, making him and
Spencer Tracy the only winners to do so in this category.
Jessica Lange got her second Oscar and first Best Actress award, while Best Supporting Actress
Dianne Wiest became the first person to win two acting Oscars for performances in films directed by the same person,
Woody Allen. Best Supporting Actor winner
Martin Landau was doing some of the best work of his career in his 60s and capped that with a tour de force as film star
Bela Lugosi in
Tim Burton's Ed Wood, a film inexplicably overlooked for a Best Picture nomination. At the ceremony, when the orchestra tried to play him offstage he pounded his fist on the podium and shouted "No!", angry because he was unable to thank Lugosi. Whovians take note, future
DoctorPeter Capaldi shared the Best Live Action Short award for writing and directing Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, only the fifth tie for an award in Oscar history.
Zehnder's(created by
Chris Woodrich,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Zehnder's is a large restaurant in
Frankenmuth,
Michigan. The food, served family style, is generally American or midwestern-style, like chicken dinners, seafood, steaks, fresh baked goods, and European desserts. Originally built as the Exchange Hotel by Henry Reichle in 1856, in 1927, William Zehnder, Sr. purchased the hotel and remodeled the building, including redesigning the facade to look like
Mount Vernon. In the 1980s, it was one of the ten largest restaurants in the United States, with seating for 1,500 people. Zehnder's serves almost a million people annually. John Zehnder, the executive chef and food and beverage manager at Zehnder's, received the 2011 Hermann G. Rusch Chef's Achievement Award from the
American Culinary Federation.
Koi feeding(created by Arden, uploaded by
AgnosticPreachersKid )Koi is a pet fish, kept in ponds because they are believed to bring luck and money to the house. These guys are fighting for the food in a pond at the
United States National Arboretum. The koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation. Some of the major colors are white, black, red, yellow, blue, and cream. Common carp were bred to a new breed, the koi, with bright colors, in
Japan in the 1820s. By the 20th century, a number of color patterns had been established, most notably the red-and-white that is called Kohaku in Japanese. New koi varieties are still being actively developed.
Apse of Our Lady of the Assumption(created by
Chris Woodrich,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Our Lady of the Assumption, located at 350 Huron Church Road in
Windsor,
Ontario, is the oldest continuous
parish in Ontario. On July 7, 1842 the
cornerstone of the present church was laid. Three years later, on July 20, 1845, the new 60 by 120 feet (18 m × 37 m) rectangular church was inaugurated under Fr. Pierre Point S.J. This rectangular structure forms the nave of the present parish. The church's high altar, spacious sanctuary, communion rail, and pipe organ make it an impressive and appropriate home for this historic liturgy, which attracts churchgoers from throughout southern Ontario and southeastern Michigan.
Dancing Fairies(created by
August Malmström , nominated by
Hafspajen )Dancing Fairies (
Swedish: Älvalek) is a painting by the Swedish painter
August Malmström, depicting
fairies dancing above the water in a moonlit landscape. The visionary painting depicts the morning mist turning into fairies, like the spirits of untamed nature. The fairies are dancing in the meadow in the twilight and they flow over the
romantic landscape; one of them bends over the water to catch a glimpse of her own image. In Swedish folklore, the fairies were seen as delicate, tender, sensitive
creatures, but also capricious and inclined to have their feelings hurt easily and take offence if not treated well and respected. Malmström, who was a professor at the
Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, was one of the Swedish artists who aspired to create a
nationalSwedish art. August Malmström's Dancing Fairies is a widely recognised work in its home country.
Tungabhadra River near Hampi(created by
Dey.sandip,
nominated by
National Names 2000)Coracles are round-shaped flat bottomed boats used on rivers as paddled fishing vessels. This picture depicts a pair of coracles on
Tungabhadra River near
Hampi, India. Coracles are oval in shape and can be made of wood with interwoven bamboo and waterproofed by using resin and coconut oil, or a framework of split and interwoven
willow rods, tied with willow bark, with an outer layer made by animal skin,
calico or
canvas with a thin layer of
tar, or nowadays even
fibreglass, to make it waterproof. Coracles traditionally vary in design between different rivers; the
Teifi river coracles are flat-bottomed for shallow rapids, while the Carmarthen coracle is rounder and deeper, for use on tidal waters on the
Tywi.
Breakfast Time(created by
Hanna Pauli and
nominated by
SagaciousPhil)Breakfast Time is a painting completed in 1887 by the Swedish artist
Hanna Pauli (1864–1940). An open-air painting, Breakfast Time depicts a tranquil scene with a table set for breakfast on a sunny morning. Placed at the bottom right of the picture is a
table covered with a white tablecloth alongside a bench and two chairs. It is positioned under a tree with its branches stretching over the table. A maid is approaching the table carrying a
tray in her hands. The light is reflected from the shiny objects on the table and from the white
tablecloth. The painting was completed by Hanna Pauli by the summer of 1887; later that year, in the autumn, she became engaged to her future husband,
Georg Pauli, who was also an artist. When the painting was completed she was still unmarried and the signature is her maiden name. Breakfast Time was exhibited at the
World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and the Chicago
World's Fair in 1893.
Beech Grove I(created by
Gustav Klimt,
nominated by
Sca)Beech Grove I is a painting by Austrian artist
Gustav Klimt, mostly known for his iconic painting The Kiss, which depicts two people passionately kissing each other lost in a gold
turmoil. Klimt is noted as a master of eroticism and for his
symbolist paintings,
murals,
sketches, and other
objets d'art. He was one of the most prominent members of the
Vienna Secession movement. Klimt's primary subject was the female body. It's safe to say that he liked his ladies, naked.
Drainage of water in Lake Urmia(created by
مانفی using
NASA imagery,
nominated by
Crisco 1492) This animation of the
Lake Urmia drought was created with
NASA images mixed using cross dissolve transition in
Adobe Premiere.
Lake Urmia is an
endorheicsalt lake in northwestern
Iran near Iran's border with
Turkey. The recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water the lake receives. This in turn has increased the salinity of the lake's water, lowering the lake's viability as home to thousands of migratory birds, including large
flamingo populations. The salinity has particularly increased in the half of the lake north of the
causeway. The lake is between the provinces of
East Azerbaijan and
West Azerbaijan in
Iran and west of the southern portion of the
Caspian Sea. At its full size, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth largest
saltwater lake on Earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 mi) length, 55 km (34 mi) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. To infinity and beyond!
Burking Poor Old Mrs Constitution, Aged 141(created by
William Heath, restored and
nominated by
SchroCat) This is a political cartoon based on the
Burke and Hare murders, a
series of murders committed in
Edinburgh, Scotland, over a period of about ten months in 1828. The killings were attributed to
Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses of their 16 victims to
DoctorRobert Knox as
dissection material for his well-attended
anatomy lectures. Before 1832, there were insufficient
cadavers legitimately available for the study and teaching of
anatomy in Britain's medical schools. As medical science began to flourish in the early nineteenth century, the demand for cadavers rose sharply, but at the same time the legal supply failed to keep pace. One of the main sources—the bodies of executed criminals—had begun to dry up owing to a reduction in the number of executions being carried out in the early nineteenth century.
Hayley Williams(created by
Sven-Sebastian Sajak,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Hayley Williams, lead vocalist of the American rock band
Paramore, at
Rock im Park 2013 in Nuremberg, Germany. Williams was discovered in 2003 by managers Dave Steunebrink and Richard Williams, who signed the 14-year-old to a two-year production deal. In the 2007 Kerrang! Readers' Poll she finished second to
Evanescence's
Amy Lee in the "Sexiest Female" category, going on to win the first place spot for "Sexiest Female" a year later in the 2008 poll, and again in the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 poll
Simeis 147(created by
Rogelio Bernal Andreo,
nominated by
The Herald) Photograph by Rogelio Bernal Andreo of Simeis 147.
Simeis 147, also known as the Spaghetti Nebula, SNR G180.0-01.7 or
Sharpless 2-240, is a
supernova remnant (SNR) in the
Milky Way, straddling the border between the constellations
Auriga and
Taurus. Discovered in 1952 at the
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory using a 25-inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, it is difficult to observe due to its extremely low brightness. This filamentary structure can be found in the constellation Taurus, close to the border of Aurigua, in roughly the same line of sight as the star Elnath. Approximately 3000 light years away, the nebula stretches about 150 light years across.
I know of no finer example of the Persian Islamic genius than the interior of the dome: The dome is inset with a network of lemon-shaped compartments, which decrease in size as they ascend towards the formalized peacock at the apex... The mihrāb in the west wall is enameled with tiny flowers on a deep blue meadow. Each part of the design, each plane, each repetition, each separate branch or blossom has its own somber beauty. But the beauty of the whole comes as you move. Again, the highlights are broken by the play of glazed and unglazed surfaces; so that with every step they rearrange themselves in countless shining patterns... I have never encountered splendor of this kind before.
A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish: Five pictures, six lists, and seventeen pictures were promoted
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted to featured status from 1 February through 7 February.Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
James B. Weaver(
nominated by
Coemgenus) James Baird Weaver was a member of the
United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States. After several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the
Greenback Party, which supported increasing the money supply and regulating big business. As the Greenback Party fell apart, a new left-wing third party, the
Populists, arose. Weaver helped to organize the party and was their nominee for President in
1892. Many party insiders, however, were wary of Weaver's association with the
Prohibition movement and preferred to remain uncommitted on the divisive issue.
I Never Liked You(
nominated by
Curly Turkey)I Never Liked You is an autobiographical
graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist
Chester Brown, originally serialized as Fuck in the pages of his comic book Yummy Fur. Brown was at the forefront of the 90s wave of autobiographical comics. Since cartoonists usually spent most of their days at the drawing table trying to eke out a living, here autobiography didn't mean high adventure, it meant the minutiae of human existence. These cartoonists put their own lives under the microscope, unflinchingly portraying their weird emotional states, sexual fantasies, and masturbatory habits. In I Never Liked You, Brown tells the story of his introverted teenage years in a Montreal suburb. He is painfully unable to express emotion, especially to women, including his dying mother and the girl next door he is interested in. The powerful story and minimalist style drew critical adulation and awards, so if you are in the mood to revisit your awkward adolescence, this is the book for you.
The Thrill Book(
nominated by
Mike Christie)The Thrill Book was a short-lived US
pulp magazine published by
Street & Smith in 1919. It was intended to carry "different" stories: this meant stories that were unusual or unclassifiable, which in practice often meant that the stories were
fantasy or
science fiction. Although The Thrill Book has been described as the first American pulp to specialize in fantasy and science fiction, this description is not supported by recent historians of the field, who regard it instead as a stepping stone on the path that ultimately led to Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, the first true specialized magazines in the fields of
weird fiction and science fiction respectively. Street & Smith cancelled the magazine after the sixteenth issue, dated October 15. A printers' strike has often been suggested as the reason.
William of Wrotham(
nominated by
Ealdgyth) William of Wrotham was a larger than life figure from the dramatic days of the English middle ages. When
Robin Hood roamed
Sherwood Forest, William was having action-packed adventures as...
Archdeacon of Taunton and "keeper of ports". Like the
Sheriff of Nottingham, William was a minion of
King John, usually depicted as so villainous that the
Magna Carta had to be forced upon him by his own rebellious barons. One of those rebels was William, who until that point had ably served John in a number of ecclesiastical and naval posts. After a brief time in exile, William was back in the good graces of John and his son and successor
Henry III. Chronicler
Roger of Wendover dubbed him one of John's "most wicked counsellors", but later historians called him a distinguished administrator.
67th Academy Awards(
nominated by
Birdienest81) Held in March 1995, sentimental favorite Forrest Gump won Best Picture over four better 1994 films and took away 6 wins out of 13 nominations. To this day, some insist it should have been
Pulp Fiction's year, and while the film catapulted
Quentin Tarantino to stardom, out of 6 nominations it only went home with Best Original Screenplay. Gump earned
Tom Hanks his second consecutive Best Actor, making him and
Spencer Tracy the only winners to do so in this category.
Jessica Lange got her second Oscar and first Best Actress award, while Best Supporting Actress
Dianne Wiest became the first person to win two acting Oscars for performances in films directed by the same person,
Woody Allen. Best Supporting Actor winner
Martin Landau was doing some of the best work of his career in his 60s and capped that with a tour de force as film star
Bela Lugosi in
Tim Burton's Ed Wood, a film inexplicably overlooked for a Best Picture nomination. At the ceremony, when the orchestra tried to play him offstage he pounded his fist on the podium and shouted "No!", angry because he was unable to thank Lugosi. Whovians take note, future
DoctorPeter Capaldi shared the Best Live Action Short award for writing and directing Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, only the fifth tie for an award in Oscar history.
Zehnder's(created by
Chris Woodrich,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Zehnder's is a large restaurant in
Frankenmuth,
Michigan. The food, served family style, is generally American or midwestern-style, like chicken dinners, seafood, steaks, fresh baked goods, and European desserts. Originally built as the Exchange Hotel by Henry Reichle in 1856, in 1927, William Zehnder, Sr. purchased the hotel and remodeled the building, including redesigning the facade to look like
Mount Vernon. In the 1980s, it was one of the ten largest restaurants in the United States, with seating for 1,500 people. Zehnder's serves almost a million people annually. John Zehnder, the executive chef and food and beverage manager at Zehnder's, received the 2011 Hermann G. Rusch Chef's Achievement Award from the
American Culinary Federation.
Koi feeding(created by Arden, uploaded by
AgnosticPreachersKid )Koi is a pet fish, kept in ponds because they are believed to bring luck and money to the house. These guys are fighting for the food in a pond at the
United States National Arboretum. The koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation. Some of the major colors are white, black, red, yellow, blue, and cream. Common carp were bred to a new breed, the koi, with bright colors, in
Japan in the 1820s. By the 20th century, a number of color patterns had been established, most notably the red-and-white that is called Kohaku in Japanese. New koi varieties are still being actively developed.
Apse of Our Lady of the Assumption(created by
Chris Woodrich,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Our Lady of the Assumption, located at 350 Huron Church Road in
Windsor,
Ontario, is the oldest continuous
parish in Ontario. On July 7, 1842 the
cornerstone of the present church was laid. Three years later, on July 20, 1845, the new 60 by 120 feet (18 m × 37 m) rectangular church was inaugurated under Fr. Pierre Point S.J. This rectangular structure forms the nave of the present parish. The church's high altar, spacious sanctuary, communion rail, and pipe organ make it an impressive and appropriate home for this historic liturgy, which attracts churchgoers from throughout southern Ontario and southeastern Michigan.
Dancing Fairies(created by
August Malmström , nominated by
Hafspajen )Dancing Fairies (
Swedish: Älvalek) is a painting by the Swedish painter
August Malmström, depicting
fairies dancing above the water in a moonlit landscape. The visionary painting depicts the morning mist turning into fairies, like the spirits of untamed nature. The fairies are dancing in the meadow in the twilight and they flow over the
romantic landscape; one of them bends over the water to catch a glimpse of her own image. In Swedish folklore, the fairies were seen as delicate, tender, sensitive
creatures, but also capricious and inclined to have their feelings hurt easily and take offence if not treated well and respected. Malmström, who was a professor at the
Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, was one of the Swedish artists who aspired to create a
nationalSwedish art. August Malmström's Dancing Fairies is a widely recognised work in its home country.
Tungabhadra River near Hampi(created by
Dey.sandip,
nominated by
National Names 2000)Coracles are round-shaped flat bottomed boats used on rivers as paddled fishing vessels. This picture depicts a pair of coracles on
Tungabhadra River near
Hampi, India. Coracles are oval in shape and can be made of wood with interwoven bamboo and waterproofed by using resin and coconut oil, or a framework of split and interwoven
willow rods, tied with willow bark, with an outer layer made by animal skin,
calico or
canvas with a thin layer of
tar, or nowadays even
fibreglass, to make it waterproof. Coracles traditionally vary in design between different rivers; the
Teifi river coracles are flat-bottomed for shallow rapids, while the Carmarthen coracle is rounder and deeper, for use on tidal waters on the
Tywi.
Breakfast Time(created by
Hanna Pauli and
nominated by
SagaciousPhil)Breakfast Time is a painting completed in 1887 by the Swedish artist
Hanna Pauli (1864–1940). An open-air painting, Breakfast Time depicts a tranquil scene with a table set for breakfast on a sunny morning. Placed at the bottom right of the picture is a
table covered with a white tablecloth alongside a bench and two chairs. It is positioned under a tree with its branches stretching over the table. A maid is approaching the table carrying a
tray in her hands. The light is reflected from the shiny objects on the table and from the white
tablecloth. The painting was completed by Hanna Pauli by the summer of 1887; later that year, in the autumn, she became engaged to her future husband,
Georg Pauli, who was also an artist. When the painting was completed she was still unmarried and the signature is her maiden name. Breakfast Time was exhibited at the
World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and the Chicago
World's Fair in 1893.
Beech Grove I(created by
Gustav Klimt,
nominated by
Sca)Beech Grove I is a painting by Austrian artist
Gustav Klimt, mostly known for his iconic painting The Kiss, which depicts two people passionately kissing each other lost in a gold
turmoil. Klimt is noted as a master of eroticism and for his
symbolist paintings,
murals,
sketches, and other
objets d'art. He was one of the most prominent members of the
Vienna Secession movement. Klimt's primary subject was the female body. It's safe to say that he liked his ladies, naked.
Drainage of water in Lake Urmia(created by
مانفی using
NASA imagery,
nominated by
Crisco 1492) This animation of the
Lake Urmia drought was created with
NASA images mixed using cross dissolve transition in
Adobe Premiere.
Lake Urmia is an
endorheicsalt lake in northwestern
Iran near Iran's border with
Turkey. The recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water the lake receives. This in turn has increased the salinity of the lake's water, lowering the lake's viability as home to thousands of migratory birds, including large
flamingo populations. The salinity has particularly increased in the half of the lake north of the
causeway. The lake is between the provinces of
East Azerbaijan and
West Azerbaijan in
Iran and west of the southern portion of the
Caspian Sea. At its full size, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth largest
saltwater lake on Earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 mi) length, 55 km (34 mi) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. To infinity and beyond!
Burking Poor Old Mrs Constitution, Aged 141(created by
William Heath, restored and
nominated by
SchroCat) This is a political cartoon based on the
Burke and Hare murders, a
series of murders committed in
Edinburgh, Scotland, over a period of about ten months in 1828. The killings were attributed to
Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses of their 16 victims to
DoctorRobert Knox as
dissection material for his well-attended
anatomy lectures. Before 1832, there were insufficient
cadavers legitimately available for the study and teaching of
anatomy in Britain's medical schools. As medical science began to flourish in the early nineteenth century, the demand for cadavers rose sharply, but at the same time the legal supply failed to keep pace. One of the main sources—the bodies of executed criminals—had begun to dry up owing to a reduction in the number of executions being carried out in the early nineteenth century.
Hayley Williams(created by
Sven-Sebastian Sajak,
nominated by
Crisco 1492)Hayley Williams, lead vocalist of the American rock band
Paramore, at
Rock im Park 2013 in Nuremberg, Germany. Williams was discovered in 2003 by managers Dave Steunebrink and Richard Williams, who signed the 14-year-old to a two-year production deal. In the 2007 Kerrang! Readers' Poll she finished second to
Evanescence's
Amy Lee in the "Sexiest Female" category, going on to win the first place spot for "Sexiest Female" a year later in the 2008 poll, and again in the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 poll
Simeis 147(created by
Rogelio Bernal Andreo,
nominated by
The Herald) Photograph by Rogelio Bernal Andreo of Simeis 147.
Simeis 147, also known as the Spaghetti Nebula, SNR G180.0-01.7 or
Sharpless 2-240, is a
supernova remnant (SNR) in the
Milky Way, straddling the border between the constellations
Auriga and
Taurus. Discovered in 1952 at the
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory using a 25-inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, it is difficult to observe due to its extremely low brightness. This filamentary structure can be found in the constellation Taurus, close to the border of Aurigua, in roughly the same line of sight as the star Elnath. Approximately 3000 light years away, the nebula stretches about 150 light years across.
I know of no finer example of the Persian Islamic genius than the interior of the dome: The dome is inset with a network of lemon-shaped compartments, which decrease in size as they ascend towards the formalized peacock at the apex... The mihrāb in the west wall is enameled with tiny flowers on a deep blue meadow. Each part of the design, each plane, each repetition, each separate branch or blossom has its own somber beauty. But the beauty of the whole comes as you move. Again, the highlights are broken by the play of glazed and unglazed surfaces; so that with every step they rearrange themselves in countless shining patterns... I have never encountered splendor of this kind before.
Discuss this story