Detour to Hubble Telescope et al--A reflection

For the past few months, my cuckoo head had decided to turn my head on the big world outside the earth.

Honestly, I know about the eclipses and stuff because that was the content used for my dissertation study.  Since the joint college entrance exam didn't include the subject of planetary science and astronomy, that third year class in senior high school was taken lightly. Also, I haven't touched physics after the joint college entrance exam.

So instead of finishing the final chapter of my book, my head told me, "You ain't got enough meat."

So it demanded and demands and so I went from looking at the pretty picture taken by Grandpa Hubble (Grandpa as in my grandpa Canon) to learning about how Grandpa sees the big out there and how what is seen is captured.

En route, I read a 400-page book about the basics of optics in astronomy, sat in a course on "Fourier Transformation and its applications," revisited my calculus textbook, found myself even more lectures online, and spent a whole lot of time on the Hubble Site.

Then, I found pictures comparing Grandpa's eyesight before and after the spherical aberration thing was fixed and upgrading from WFPC 1 to WFPC 2. There were comparisons of galaxies, star clusters, and so on. But, I had my mind a mission of completing a comparison for one star--Melnick 34 or MK 34.

I chose MK 34 because of the inclusion of an image taken by a ground-based telescope. There was ground, WFPC 1 and WFPC 2 images. All I had to do was to find an image of MK 34 taken by WFPC 3. Seemed simple enough.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be so intrigued by MK 34 since the time of WFPC3. Rather, the spot light was on the giant bright cluster near by R136 or the runaway star but not on our poor MK 34.

MK 34 is the bright isolated star to the left of the R136 cluster in the righthand panel. (As per Wikipedia)

 I should have found an easier topic. In contrast to a galaxy, star cluster, or nebula, it is far more difficult to identify one star among gazillions of God knows who they are.

In short, I went online asking around and the feedback helped me to nail MK 34 (circled in red).

This, then, allowed me to complete the revolution of MK 34 in the eyes of the beholder.

Comparison of MK 34--ground based observation, WFPC 1, WFPC 2, and WFPC 3 (IR on the left and UV, visible light, IR on the right)

Some time into learning how Hubble sees and captures what we see, I thought of the analog between my pursuit of capturing the dasein of psychosis in words. There is something similar. Unfortunately, time to sign off for my very long beauty sleep.

This program will go on--David Brown

[David Brown's] brother asked him several weeks ago what would happen if something went wrong on their mission .... David replied, 'This program will go on.' (See linked page.)

I was on the 8th floor of St. Luke's when the Columbia Shuttle was reported missing upon re-entering the earth atmosphere. It was February 1st, 2003. One otherwise ordinary Saturday.

There was still hope and the search went on. So they said on TV.

There was this choking air of solemness inside the psychiatric ward and nobody was laughing.

I finally connected with the crew members and told them to hold on till the rescuers to arrive.

"Hang on!" I stayed with them. "Do hang on."

On TV, the search was still going on as I looked outside the window. I stared at the snow covering St. John the unfinished, praying for a safe landing before getting reconnected with the crews.

The clock was ticking and the hope of their survival dwindled rapidly till the time came when all hope was lost and the bad news, released.

I stayed with them till the end ... till it was time for them to go.

I failed to help them despite my best effort.

Years later, when revisiting this unfortunate event, it occurred to me ... I might not be the only one channeling with them and trying to keep them alive. So might be any of my wardmates with telepathic capacity on that wing of the 8th floor, my distant wardmates in the other wing, and many many more unknown wardmates all around the globe.

I would never be able to imagine the grief and suffering their families must have gone through.

But, however it is perceived, we, the psychotics, tried to keep the crew members alive till they are found by the rescuing efforts--in our own worlds.

The Space Shuttle Columbia didn't make it to Hubble Telescope's fourth service mission in 2004.

But, as David Brown had it predicted and all on board would have agreed, 'This program will go on.' The fourth service mission to Hubble took place in 2009.

Why persist? (Darn, go and pursue happiness.)

It sounds funny from a depressive neurotic like me but people have to learn to be happy.

Either it's you who make the choices or the choices make you. Your choice is yours and, at the end of the day, you are the key maker to your own happiness.

So, pardon this two-bit nothing for not minding her own business, shut the F-up and move your behind to pursuit happiness, via professional help or not.

I feel like a piece of shit in the body, including the head, everyday. I slave away by my own constitution and had to be overdosed by 50 mg of Seroquel, flipping around like a freaking fish on a cutting board. I find a sense of happiness at some point in my day.

On the day when I had to wake up early to see my shrink and observe people's persistence to go against the path towards happiness, I have to shout it out loud, I am sick and tired of it all and I can't take it any more--why don't them people correct their own track and, Lord or Buddha or the benign universe or etc., go and pursue happiness! Wake up! Wake up! Don't they know they are witnessing themselves getting a bad haircut?

If this piece of shit could find a sense of happiness in the everyday things, how can anyone else with a far more functional body not able to do it?

OMG, I am the one who's psychotic and started my mental career as a depressive!

(Time for my daily meds.)