Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: the 1977 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopio – exported to Australia and purchased new by Rod Stewart who was touring at the time.

One of three Countachs owned by the singer, this one – in classic rosso with a tobacco leather interior – was modified extensively over the years, spending most of its life in the studio where Stewart wrote ‘Blondes Have More Fun’ before being sold on in 2002. In 2013, a third owner had it restored to its original condition.

Yours for between €750,000 and €900,000.

Or you could have something similar in blue.

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Behold: spiral galaxy NGC 1350 – a beautiful island universe 85 million light years away in the constellation of Formax. To wit:

Inhabited by young blue star clusters, the tightly wound spiral arms of NGC 1350 seem to join in a circle around the galaxy’s large, bright nucleus, giving it the appearance of a cosmic eye. In fact, NGC 1350 is about 130,000 light-years across. That makes it as large or slightly larger than the Milky Way. For earth-based astronomers, NGC 1350 is seen on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, but its estimated distance suggests that it is not itself a cluster member. Of course, the bright spiky stars in the foreground of this telescopic field of view are members of our own spiral Milky Way galaxy.

(Image: Mike Selby, Warren Keller)

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Behold: the constellation of Cygnus near the northern end of the Great Rift, or ‘Dark River’: the cosmic dust clouds that normally obscure the centre of the Milky Way from our view. To wit:

Composed over a decade with 400 hours of image data, the broad mosaic spans an impressive 28×18 degrees across the sky. Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiant Deneb lies at the left. Crowded with stars and luminous gas clouds Cygnus is also home to the dark, obscuring Northern Coal Sack Nebula and the star forming emission regions NGC 7000, the North America Nebula and IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, just left and a little below Deneb. Many other nebulae and star clusters are identifiable throughout the cosmic scene. Of course, Deneb itself is also known to northern hemisphere skygazers for its place in two asterisms, marking a vertex of the Summer Triangle, the top of the Northern Cross.

(Image: J-P Metsavainio (Astro Anarchy)

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