My Travel Log, Where I Collect My Favorite Photos From Past Trips.

What’s Up For August 2018?

The summer Perseids are here! 

The Perseid meteor shower is the best of the year! It peaks on a Moonless summer night from 4 p.m. EST on August 12 until 4 a.m. EST on August 13.

Because the new Moon falls near the peak night, the days before and after the peak will also provide nice, dark skies. Your best window of observation is from a few hours after twilight until dawn, on the days surrounding the peak.

Unlike most meteor showers, which have a short peak of high meteor rates, the Perseids have a very broad peak, as Earth takes more than three weeks to plow through the wide trail of cometary dust from comet Swift-Tuttle.

The Perseids appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, visible in the northern sky soon after sunset this time of year. Observers in mid-northern latitudes will have the best views.

You should be able to see some meteors from July 17 to August 24, with the rates increasing during the weeks before August 12 and decreasing after August 13.

Observers should be able to see between 60 and 70 per hour at the peak. Remember, you don’t have to look directly at the constellation to see them. You can look anywhere you want to-even directly overhead.

Meteor showers like the Perseids are caused by streams of meteoroids hitting Earth’s atmosphere. The particles were once part of their parent comet-or, in some cases, from an asteroid.

The parade of planets Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars–and the Milky Way continue to grace the evening sky, keeping you and the mosquitoes company while you hunt for meteors.

Watch the full What’s Up for August Video: 

There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Astrology, the Basics

“Wait, so i’m not just an Aries?!”

No, you’re not. In fact none of us are just one anything. So let’s dial it back to day we were born. The stars and planets in the sky aligned to convey a story completely unique to you, and thus your natal chart was born!

   Our Sun sign

“Playboi, what’s a Sun Sign?”

Well, the Sun Sign is the sign everyone typically knows about themselves. It’s the sign you were born under that immediately correlates with your birthday. Meaning, “I was born in April so I’m a Taurus!” Your sun sign is the sign the Sun was in on the day of your birth. So what does the sun represent in astrology? Our vitality and ego, “who we are.” The thing about the Sun is we’re constantly growing into ourselves and our egos, constantly learning ourselves and strengths, so we’re constantly growing into our Suns. Many people write off astrology due to their inability to relate to their Sun signs when so much more goes into a person. Your Sun sign is less “who i am” and more so “who i’m becoming.” And sometimes we never fully become the poster child of our Sun signs because we grow at different rates and resonate with different things, not to mention the housing of the Sun plays a heavy role in how our “egos” will play out. Also aspects made to our Sun by other planets are most important as they shape our Sun’s characteristics, but that’s another post!

Our Moon Sign

“…okay, so I understand Sun Signs now, but what’s a moon sign?”

The moon sign in astrology is of immense importance. This is where we feel most comfortable and secure and our primal emotional reactions. As I mentioned previously, the sun is “who we’re becoming’’ while the moon can be defined as “who we always are.” Unlike the Sun who illuminates everything, the moon is a softer, dimmer light. It lights up the dark sky at night and it does the same for our personal dark sky emotionally. Simply put, the moon is our emotions. Emotions can be simply irrational and erratic, so we suppress them because throwing a hissy fit in public is not that endearing. My point being that our moons can sometimes be overlooked by others as well as our selves because the attributes of our moons are highly subconscious at times.The moon is how we were nourished, and in turn how we nourish others. It’s an extremely sentimental and personal part of our being.It’s what makes us feel safe as well as habitual patterns we carry. A balanced moon is very important as an unbalanced one can take a toll on us physically. When the needs our moon requires aren’t met, we can start to display it’s negative attributes and fall into a bit of a depression, eat less, and never leave your bed. Or perhaps become more aggressive and angry depending on your moon sign. It’s also equally important to understand that others around us have different moon placements then us natally. Everyone requires different things to feel emotionally secure, sometimes we’re harder on others because their love languages differ from our own.

   Our Mercury Sign

“What does Mercury have to do with anything?”

Well, everything. Mercury rules over the mind, how we think, how fast we think, how we learn, our speech, and even our style of writing. He’s the fastest moving planet in the solar system so it’s fitting that he rules the nervous system. The poor guy gets glossed over a lot until he turns retrograde and everyone starts running around like chickens missing their heads because that’s when we notice most how strong Mercury’s influence is on our lives. Mercury is not an emotional planet but more so an intellectual one. It’s how we asses things and use logic before we act, if we use logic before we act.

Our Venus Sign

“I KNOW THIS ONE…LOVE RIGHT?”

You’ve guessed it, Venus rules over romance but a lot more as well. She’s our social graces, if we have any social graces at all. How we charm others as well as what we personally find pleasurable. Venus rules over our attitude towards money and material things. How much we spend and how often we treat ourselves. What we like to eat, what tastes good, what feels good. Venus is also our attractiveness, and what we’re attracted to. She gives us a clue to our love language on a more superficial level, what it takes to woo us. How we like to be seduced and pursued. Venus is diplomatic, she shows us how we make peace with others. Venus also rules over artistry and how appreciate the arts and even the possibility of having artistic gifts as well. Venus also highlights our sexual nature in terms of what we find pleasurable, what feels right, and what we find acceptable.

Our Mars Sign

“Mars is our…anger?”

He can be, yes. After all he is the God of War. Mars in astrology represents energy. Our physical energy and vitality, and especially our sexual energy. He’s all about action, what it physically takes us to do…well, anything. He’s our day to day strength and drive. He exemplifies how aggressive and assertive we are. Our ambitions, durability, temperament, action, and drive. Do we exercise? How sexual are we? Our sexual style? Our competitiveness? All can be answered by our mars sign. Mars showcases how quick we are to anger, what makes us tick/explode. He’s also the last of the personal planets.

Our Jupiter Sign

“……”

Jupiter is the first non personal planet as it stays in the same for an entire year. Everyone born within that year will have the same Jupiter sign. That doesn’t negate Jupiter’s importance in anyway, so don’t skim over him. It just means we have take a closer look at him in our natal chart by examining his house placement and aspects made towards him by other planets. Jupiter rules over good fortune, philosophy, travel, and higher level learning (different from mercury.) He is expansive and optimistic. He’s a grand catalyst to spiritual growth. He’s where we overindulge, our generosity, and wisdom.

Our Saturn Sign

“So what does Saturn do?”

Saturn is like our astrological father. He sets the rules and regulations, the routine. And like when we disobey our paternal father there’s consequences the same applies for Saturn. Saturn is not out to punish anyone, he just returns anything we put out into the universe. “What goes around comes around.” Sound familiar? Saturn rules over Karma. Saturn in our chart shows us where he grounds us, where we must be held responsible, where we must work hard. Our careers, the practicality of how we achieve success.

Our Uranus Sign

“and Uranus?”

Uranus is a much slower moving planet. His energy is very erratic, spontaneous, and rebellious. He’s extremely progressive and an advocate for originality. Uranus has to be looked at by house placement to determine its effects on us individually, as people from the same generation will share the same Uranus sign. Uranus in our charts will show us where we are unpredictable and rebellious. How and where we go against the grain. Our humanitarian side. How interested in activism we are, where we are liberated ourselves.

Our Neptune Sign

“that Sea God?”

Indeed. Neptune is the God of the Sea. In astrology Neptune rules over spirituality, all things hazy, confusion, love and romance on a deeper, ethereal level. He is illusions and our dreams. Intuition and psychic abilities. Neptune has dominion over deeper creativity and artistic abilities. He also shows us where we might try to escape reality and what we may try to use to escape reality with. He is addiction, substance abuse, and deception. Our fantasies. 

Our Pluto Sign

“isn’t Pluto like not even a planet anymore?”

Yes, technically Pluto is a planetoid, but we still refer to Pluto as a planet in astrology so he will be respected as such! Despite his small size and the grand amount of distance he is from us his effects are undeniable.Pluto in our charts shows us where we are transformed and regenerated. Where we must die to be born again. His energy is very subconscious, we don’t always see it, but we feel it.  He is obsession, and our hunger for power, where we struggle for power. He is how we react to sex on a deeper, subconscious level. Where and what we become drawn and attached to. His energy is very primal. He also highlights where we’re manipulative or jealous if we’re displaying the negative attributes of Pluto. 

Our Ascendant Sign

“our…what sign?”

Our Ascendant sign is crowned the ruler of our chart, and is of equal importance as our Sun and Moon signs. It’s specific to our birth time and location. The Ascendant is like the mask we put on to face the world. It’s our initial reaction to external forces. The lens we see life through on a day to day basis. Our ascendant is our physical bodies, how we look and how we act in public. It’s how people initially receive you, our first impressions, our mannerisms. Our outer personality. If people were to describe you they’d likely describe this sign.

So, as you can see a lot goes into a persons personality even more than what’s been mentioned above, humans are complex beings who can’t be described as just one sign, or one anything. We are more than our sun signs, we are more than signs period.

- playboi

She’s so powerful

∆Some more Color Correspondences∆

Silver: femininity, awakening to spirituality and the cosmic mind, intuition, the moon, divination

Gold: masculinity, divine protection, wisdom, inner knowledge, universal energy, the sun

Black: contemplation of the universe, protection, elegance, power, mystery, the unknown

Grey: dignity, seeing between white and black, unseen health problems

Indigo: intuition, divination, psychic awareness, akashic records, clarity of the mind, third eye chakra

Lavender: dreams, imagination, etheric energy

Turquoise: sensitivity to emotions, compassion, healing, counseling, immune system health

Emerald: healing, love, emotions, love of others and oneself

Violet: spiritual sensitivity, intuition, psychic power, healing of body and mind, deep awareness, gateways to spirit

Part 1

{ 02-04-18 } 91/100 days of productivity

29 days until the start of my exams … i am trembling …

Sweat spring.

Read Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings on how Baron Von Steuben, an openly gay immigrant, whipped the US Military into shape when things were looking bleakest.

Lirika Matoshi Teuta Starry Dress

THINGS MORE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LAFAYETTE

-wrote in all caps in his letters when he was excited

-slept under a tree with Washington after the battle of Monmouth, both enveloped in Washington’s cape

-basically saved the life of the Queen by kissing her hand

-re-gifted a fucking aligator to President John Quincy Adams cause he didn’t know what the fuck to do with it

-wanted to go kill the Beast of Gévaudan (some big scary people-eating wolf that scared the shit out of the french at the time) by himself at like 6 years old

-called both Jefferson and Washington on their bullshit, telling them to free all their slaves… neither listened

-actually bought an entire island full of slaves with his wife Adrienne and freed them all, gave them money for the work they did, gave them education

-last letter he wrote before his death was about freeing slaves and how sad he was that France was taking so long to give people of colour the same rights than white people

-died holding a picture of his dead-wife to his heart

-cried with Jefferson when they met for the first time in years after both American and French revolutions

-continued to fight and got back on his horse when he was shot in the leg during his first battle

-called his only son “George Washington de Lafayette”

-was socially awkward af, especially when he was young

-a ginger

-left France to go fight for America when the King, his step family, and basically the whole court told him “no”

-had to sneak out of France

-sources differ, but probably left disguised as a woman so no one would recognised him

-gave the biggest symbol of French Revolution  (the key of the just-destroyed Bastille, a prison where the enemies of the King and Kingdom were imprisoned) to Washington

-orphan

-told Washington he was his lost father

-tripped when dancing with the Queen of France and never heard the end of it

-had “sleepovers” on the grass with John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton where they talked about politic

-threw himself in front of a loaded cannon ready to shoot to try to stop an event of the french Revolution to become too bloody

-at some point, pretty much everyone in France wanted him dead

-slept through two of the biggest events of the french Revolution lol

-gave money and helped a lot of poor farmers in need

-fought for other religions than his and the King’s own to be respected and have the same rights (specifically fought for Protestant and Jewish people)

-fought against death penalties

-brought back some dirt from America and told his son to put it on top of his grave when he dies

-redecorated his whole house in France just like American’s homes

-actually told people he was American

-altogether had a slight obsessing problem with America

-had his own room at Washington’s home

-had a ring with Washington’s hair in it

-was one of the richest man in France at the age of 12 because his whole family had basically died at that point

-changed back his family motto to “Why not?”

-was only 19 when he left for America

-was detained in horrible conditions in prison for 5 years (2 of which with his wife and daughters)

-refused the hell out of several powerful positions in politic and in the army because he didn’t found these to be close enough to his ideals of freedom and shit