Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: eBay is Destroying the doll collectors market! Sa...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: eBay is Destroying the doll collectors market! Sa...:  Here is the link to Rachel Hoffman's YouTube channel where she speaks out about eBay's latest move which is hurting doll collecting...

This is an important read for all who love dolls!!

American Doll and Toy Museum: American Doll and Toy Museum is Open!!

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American Doll and Toy Museum: Preview Opening American Doll and Toy Museum

American Doll and Toy Museum: Preview Opening American Doll and Toy Museum:   Preview Opening American Doll and Toy Museum   3059 30 th Street Rock Island , IL 61201   September 17, 2021 4 pm to 7 pm ...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: I'm on Patrick Mine...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: I'm on Patrick Mine...: American Doll and Toy Museum: I'm on Patrick Miner's Podcast! : https://www.buzzsprout.com/849880/8827056-children-play-alongside-c...

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American Doll and Toy Museum: Thinking outside the Doll House, A Memoir, is now ...: Here is the link: Thinking outside the Doll House:  https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Outside-Doll-House-Memoir-ebook/dp/B08W9QFPB9/ref=sr_1_1...

Here it is after 17 years of research and constant editing and rewriting; Thank you Dr. Roald Tweet.  This is the story of us, our museum, me, my friends and family, and of course, the dolls.

Some of our International Dolls showcased in our New Museum

Asia; Japan, Chinese Opera, Disney Small World Thailand.

Japanese Dolls are Hina Matsuri from Girls' Festival

American Angel and Nutcracker

German Bisque

Inuit, Mexico, Russia, Native American

Portugal

India

L to R: Italy,Vietnam, Russia, Frank Lloyd Wright USA, Taiwan,  China 1930s

Uncle Sam, USA

Native American

Indian, with Napoleon by Peggy Nisbet, England

 

Greece, Evzon

L:  Dionne Quint Madame Alexander, C: Day of the Dead, Mexico, R: German Bisque

African American, mid 60s

India

India

African American Folk Doll

Africa, Mid 1940s

L: Martinique, R: Brittany

Japan

Caribbean

Annette Himstedt

African Mask

Spain

Greece, to her Right, an 80s Shirley Temple

Peru

China: Life Sized Porcelain Bust

Alsace Lorraine, France, cold painted French Bisque 

Italy: Terracotta clay

Two French Bisque

Japan

Africa

France: Bernard Ravca Needle Sculpture

Left: England Bronte Parsonage, Center: Norway

Unica, Belgium

Skyward February 2021: Guest Blogger Dr. David Levy

 

Skyward for February 2021.

 

By

 

David H. Levy.

 

Orion in Winter.

 

 

Orion and vicinity as shown from Casdtor House,
one of the smaller buildings at Jarnac Observatory.  A bright Geminids
meteor is in the picture

       As twilight deepens these evenings, Orion is just clearing the eastern horizon.   Robert Frost wrote eloquently in his famous poem “The Star Splitter”

 

“You know Orion always comes up sideways,

Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains.”

Whenever I see Orion rising, which is almost every night from fall to midwinter, I am reminded of how poets like Robert Frost saw the mighty hunter as it entered the sky to take command of winter.  Even if you have difficulty finding some constellations, the three stars in a row that form Orion’s belt are a giveaway.  And if you have a telescope, as Frost did, the view is even better.  Just below the belt lies a fainter set of three stars.  Surrounding the middle one is a gigantic cloud of hydrogen gas which is the Great Nebula in Orion.    It is one of the richest star forming regions in our whole galaxy. 

During that first winter I enjoyed watching lots of the fainter stars within the nebula change their brightness over time scales of days, hours, or in one case, minutes.  According to Janet Mattei, the late director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, these variable stars can “flicker” as they go through their carefree cycles of stellar youth. 

       Near the top of Orion, marking his left shoulder, is a much older, grandfather star.  Named Betelgeuse, this star is at the other end of the stellar life cycle.  An old, very large and massive sun, Betelgeuse varies lazily from being almost as bright as Rigel, the star marking Orion’s lower right knee, to not much brighter than Bellatrix, the star marking Orion’s right shoulder.

Last winter Betelgeuse faded more than usual, and throughout 2020 it was setting off alarms that it was about to explode as a supernova. Probably not now, though it will likely happen within the next hundred thousand years or so.  In the spring Betelgeuse began to brighten again, but when I saw it rising above the eastern horizon in late August, it had faded once more. Around that same time, the Hubble Space Telescope, observing in ultraviolet light, provided data that suggested that the unusual dimming was caused by an ejection of some very high temperature gas from within the star into space.

    When Betelgeuse is finally done being the star we love, its core will collapse almost instantaneously, within a few seconds. Betelgeuse will increase exponentially in brightness.  It will shine as brightly as the first quarter Moon and will be easily visible in daylight for three months or more. It will be brighter than Tycho’s great exploding star of 1572, and brighter even than the brilliant supernova of 1006. As large as it is, Betelgeuse is probably not massive enough that its core will shrink to a black hole.  Instead, it will probably form a new neutron star, small, dark, very dense, and cold.

 

Stars are people too. They age just as we do.  They enjoy the carefree times of youth, go through a long middle age like our Sun, and then get strange again as they grow old.  Please go out and enjoy Orion rising over the eastern horizon these evenings.  It is time to settle back and enjoy this magnificent king of the winter sky.  As you look, imagine how young stars like those in the nebula, and old ones like Betelgeuse, tell their beautiful story of the life cycle of  distant suns.