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Lying some 1,500 light-years away, spanning about 3 lights years across in the constellation of Fornax, lies a planetary nebula with a shape and color reminiscent of a blue robin’s egg.
Recognized as a planetary nebula, NGC 1360 doesn’t represent a beginning though, but instead an end in the evolution of an aging star. A planetary nebula is created when a star blows off its outer layers after it has run out of fuel to burn. These outer layers of gas expand into space, forming a nebula which is often the shape of a ring or bubble. About 200 years ago, William Herschel called these spherical clouds planetary nebulae because they were round like the planets, but since then many more planetary nebula have been discovered of varying shapes. At the center of a planetary nebula, the glowing, left-over central part of the star from which it came can usually still be seen. It is expected that our Sun will also form a planetary nebula at the end of its life cycle.

Sh 2-106, also known as the Celestial Snow Angel, is an emission nebula and a star formationregion in the constellation Cygnus. It is a H II region estimated to be around 2,000 light years (600 pc) from Earth, in an isolated area of the Milky Way. Adam Block pic.

Francisco Sánchez Gómez ( 21 December 1947 – 25 February 2014), known as Paco de Lucía ), was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a “titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar”,and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as “one of history’s greatest guitarists”.

De Lucía was noted for his fast and fluent picados (fingerstyle runs). A master of contrast, he often juxtaposed picados and rasgueados (flamenco strumming) with more sensitive playing and was known for adding abstract chords and scale tones to his compositions with jazz influences. These innovations saw him play a key role in the development of traditional flamenco and the evolution of new flamenco and Latin jazz fusion from the 1970s. He received acclaim for his recordings with flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla in the 1970s, recording ten albums which are considered some of the most important and influential in flamenco history.

Some of de Lucía’s best known recordings include “Río Ancho” (later fused with Al Di Meola‘s “Mediterranean Sundance“), “Entre dos aguas“, “La Barrosa“, “Ímpetu“, “Cepa Andaluza” and “Gloria al Niño Ricardo“. His collaborations with guitarists John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola and Larry Coryell in the late 1970s saw him gain wider popularity outside his native Spain. De Lucía formed the Paco de Lucía Sextet in 1981 with his brothers, singer Pepe de Lucía and guitarist Ramón de Algeciras, and collaborated with jazz pianist Chick Corea on their 1990 album, Zyryab. In 1992, he performed live at Expo ’92 in Seville and a year later on the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. He also collaborated with guitarist Juan d’Anyelica on his album Cositas Buenas. After 2004 he greatly reduced his public performances, retiring from full touring, and typically only gave several concerts a year, usually in Spain and Germany and at European festivals during the summer months.

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993 Baltimore, MD) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.

As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical but seemingly conventional rock and roll songs with extended sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach throughout his career.

Zappa’s output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed “Project/Object”, with numerous musical phrases, ideas, and characters reappearing across his albums. His lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so, and he has been described as the “godfather” of comedy rock. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he disapproved of recreational drug use, but supported decriminalization and regulation.

Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist with a controversial critical standing; supporters of his music admired its compositional complexity, while detractors found it lacking emotional depth. He had greater commercial success outside the US, particularly in Europe. Though he worked as an independent artist, Zappa mostly relied on distribution agreements he had negotiated with the major record labels. He remains a major influence on musicians and composers. His many honors include his posthumous 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Now this Santa is keeping it Real

Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.

Bragg was born in 1957 in Barking, Essex (later part of Greater London) to Dennis Frederick Austin Bragg, an assistant sales manager to a Barking cap maker and milliner, and his wife Marie Victoria D’Urso, who was of Italian descent through her father. Bragg’s father died of lung cancer in 1976, and his mother died in 2011.

Bragg was educated at Northbury Junior School and Park Modern Secondary School (now part of Barking Abbey Secondary School) in Barking. He failed his eleven-plus exam. He developed an interest in poetry at age twelve, when his English teacher chose him to read a poem he had written for a homework assignment on a local radio station. He focused on learning and practising the guitar with his next-door neighbour, Philip Wigg (Wiggy). Some of their influences were the Faces, Small Faces and the Rolling Stones. He was also exposed to folk and folk-rock music during his teenage years, citing Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan as early influences on his songwriting.

During the rise of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, Elvis Costello also served as an inspiration for Bragg. He was particularly influenced by the Jam, as well as the Clash, whom he had seen play live in London in May 1977 on their White Riot Tour, and again at a Rock Against Racism carnival in April 1978, which he admits was the first time he really stepped into the world of music as it is used for political activism. The experience of the gig and preceding march helped shape Bragg’s left-wing politics, a change from his having previously “turned a blind eye” to casual racism.