The iconic novella by the great English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870), A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, was first published in 1843. There have been many film adaptations since, the first being in 1901. But I can’t imagine a better one than the 1951 British black & white film Scrooge. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you should watch this movie.
Even after repeated viewings, I still can’t get through it without becoming teary-eyed at various points in the movie. The film score for Scrooge was written by English composer Richard Addinsell (1904-1977), and it is unquestionably a vital part of what makes this movie so good, along with the performances of all the actors—especially Alastair Sim (1900-1976) as Ebenezer Scrooge.
Experiencing this movie, you can’t help but be reminded of the following:
Bittersweet and very sad episodes in your own life (the older we get, the more of these we have to look back upon), especially now from a perspective of hindsight. What would you have done differently, knowing what you know now?
Much of what you thought was important has been a distraction from what really is important in “a life well lived”.
It is never too late to change the focus of your attentions and endeavors.
Each meteor shower is identified using its three-character IAU meteor shower code. Codes are bold on the date of maximum, and one day either side of maximum.
Some additional events have been added to the calendar from Sources of Possible or Additional Activity, Table 6a, p. 27). I used the following abbreviations for the Table 6a events that do not have a standard three-character meteor code:
GY2 = 2006 GY2 209 = 209P/LINEAR CK1 = C/1852 K1
Here’s a printable PDF file of the meteor shower calendar shown below:
Robert Mitchum and Curt Jürgens in The Enemy Below (1957)
I don’t normally watch war movies, but the 1957 classic The Enemy Below is a war movie for people who don’t like war movies. It is best if you don’t know anything about the story or plot before you see it, so I won’t share any details here, but I will say that even if you are a pacifist (as I am), you will probably like this movie.
Some interesting facts:
The German actor Curt Jürgens, who played the German U-boat commander, was critical of Hitler and the Nazis and was sent to an internment camp in Hungary in 1944. He became an Austrian citizen after World War II.
The USS Whitehurst, an active-duty ship first used during World War II, was utilized for this movie.
Many of the sailors on the American ship in this movie were actual crewmen of the USS Whitehurst and not actors.
The main actors on the German submarine were born in Germany and Austria.
This is the film debut for (Albert) David Hedison (Jr.) as Lt. Ware, and he went on to a starring role in the television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968) as Captain Lee Crane.
The excellent 1966 first-season Star Trek episode Balance of Terror was influenced by this movie and closely parallels it.
So far, a total of 162 globular clusters have been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy.
Many of the recent globulars that have been discovered are either heavily obscured by intervening interstellar matter at visible wavelengths (and thus detectable only in the infrared), or they are so diffuse that they are difficult to detect against the field stars.
Here’s a list of the 88 constellations, and how many globulars have been found in each.
Milky Way Globular Clusters
46 of the 88 constellations harbor globulars (52%). Sagittarius contains the most globular clusters, 36, representing nearly 22% or about 1/5 of the total. This is perhaps not surprising as the center of our Milky Way galaxy (Sgr A*) is located at a distance of 26,673 ± 72 ly from our Solar System in the direction of Sagittarius near the Sagittarius-Ophiuchus-Scorpius border.
Only two other constellations host more than 5 globular clusters: Ophiuchus is in 2nd place with 25, and Scorpius comes in 3rd with 20. Together these three adjacent constellations, Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, contain a total of 81 globular clusters, exactly half (50%) of all the known Milky Way globulars! Truly, then, the Sagittarius+Ophiuchus+Scorpius region can be called the “Realm of the Globulars”.
The northernmost globular cluster is Palomar 1 (Cepheus, α2000 = 3h33m19s, δ2000 = +79°34’55”), and the southernmost globular cluster is IC 4499 (Apus, α2000 = 15h00m19s, δ2000 = -82°12’50”).
Apus NGC 6101 IC 4499
Aquarius NGC 6981 (M72) NGC 7089 (M2) NGC 7492
Aquila NGC 6749 NGC 6760 Palomar 11
Ara NGC 6352 NGC 6362 NGC 6397 ESO-SC06 FSR 1735
Auriga Palomar 2
Boötes NGC 5466
Canes Venatici NGC 5272 (M3)
Capricornus NGC 7099 (M30) Palomar 12
Carina NGC 2808
Centaurus NGC 5139 (Omega Centauri) NGC 5286 Ruprecht 106
Cepheus Palomar 1
Cetus Whiting 1
Chamaeleon ESO 37-01 (E3)
Columba NGC 1851
Coma Berenices NGC 4147 NGC 5024 (M53) NGC 5053
Corona Australis NGC 6541
Crater Crater (Laevens 1)
Delphinus NGC 6934 NGC 7006 Laevens 3
Eridanus Eridanus
Hercules NGC 6205 (M13) NGC 6229 NGC 6341 (M92) Palomar 14
Horologium NGC 1261 Arp-Madore 1
Hydra NGC 4590 (M68) NGC 5694 Arp-Madore 4
Lepus NGC 1904 (M79)
Libra NGC 5897
Lupus NGC 5824 NGC 5927 NGC 5986
Lynx NGC 2419
Lyra NGC 6779 (M56)
Musca NGC 4372 NGC 4833 Van den Bergh-Hagen 140 (BH 140)
Norma NGC 5946 FSR 1716 Lynga 7 RLGC 1
Ophiuchus NGC 6171 (M107) NGC 6218 (M12) NGC 6235 NGC 6254 (M10) NGC 6266 (M62) NGC 6273 (M19) NGC 6284 NGC 6287 NGC 6293 NGC 6304 NGC 6316 NGC 6325 NGC 6333 (M9) NGC 6342 NGC 6355 NGC 6356 NGC 6366 NGC 6401 NGC 6402 (M14) NGC 6426 NGC 6517 IC 1257 HP 1 Palomar 6 Palomar 15
Pavo NGC 6752
Pegasus NGC 7078 (M15) Palomar 13
Puppis NGC 2298
Pyxis Pyxis
Sagitta NGC 6838 (M71) Palomar 10
Sagittarius NGC 6440 NGC 6522 NGC 6528 NGC 6540 NGC 6544 NGC 6553 NGC 6558 NGC 6569 NGC 6624 NGC 6626 (M28) NGC 6637 (M69) NGC 6638 NGC 6642 NGC 6652 NGC 6656 (M22) NGC 6681 (M70) NGC 6715 (M54) NGC 6717 NGC 6723 NGC 6809 (M55) NGC 6864 (M75) 2MS-GC01 2MS-GC02 Arp 2 Van den Bergh-Hagen 261 (BH 261) Djorgovski 2 (Djorg 2) Palomar 8 Sagittarius II (Laevens 5) Terzan 5 Terzan 7 Terzan 8 Terzan 9 Terzan 10 Terzan 12 UKS 1 VVV-CL001
Scorpius NGC 6093 (M80) NGC 6121 (M4) NGC 6139 NGC 6144 NGC 6256 NGC 6380 NGC 6388 NGC 6441 NGC 6453 NGC 6496 Djorgovski 1 (Djorg 1) ESO 452-SC11 FSR 1758 Liller 1 Terzan 1 Terzan 2 Terzan 3 Terzan 4 Terzan 6 Tonantzintla 2 (Ton 2)
A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty The GRAVITY Collaboration, R. Abuter, A. Amorim, M. Bauböck, J. P. Berger, H. Bonnet, W. Brandner, Y. Clénet, V. Coudé du Foresto, P. T. de Zeeuw A&A, 625 (2019) L10
