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The death of David Bowie has caused people to remember the artist in many different ways. Only recently a request for a Bowie Constellation was reportedly put forward by Belgian radio channel Studio Brussels and the MIRA Public Observatory. Can this be done at all? And where can we see it?
Anyone watching the night sky will try to make out patterns in the stars.
This aids in navigation and, over millennia, has allowed peoples to
create myths and stories within the stars, making the sky a place that
is sacred and important to them.
Modern astronomers, however, have a more pragmatic view of the constellations. They have defined 88 regions in the sky as "constellations",
including those of the zodiac. Astronomers use the constellations as we
on Earth use countries – to describe where something is located.
On Earth, we can state where we live by giving the longitude and
latitude, which is similar to describing a location in the sky with the
'right ascension' and 'declination' used by astronomers. But it’s useful
to be able to refer to a star in Cancer, say, just as we might first
tell someone that we are from Britain, India or the US.
So could we add a new one? Unfortunately, there is no space in the
sky for a new constellation, everything has already been covered.
Therefore, there is no process to request a new constellation. Additionally, the International Astronomical Union responsible for the definition of the boundaries of the constellations never received a request.
The 'David Bowie constellation' was defined by the stars making up the unique lightning bolt from Bowie’s 1973’s Aladdin Sane album cover.
That would actually be something that astronomers call an 'asterism', a
shape made by stars, and not a region in the sky – or constellation –
at all.
The asterism would encompass a vast region, starting with the brightest star in Virgo, Spica,
10 times more massive and four times hotter at its surface than our
Sun. It then encompasses Sigma Librae, Zeta Centauri and SAO 204132,
Sigma Octantis and Beta Trianguli Australis, near the Celestial South
Pole. It would contain parts of the zodiac, some considerably bright,
named and well-known stars – but would also cross eight constellations.
Overall, the 'David Bowie constellation' was a description of an
asterism linked to recent events that spiralled out of control through
misinterpretation. What it shows is that what we see in the stars is
very much influenced by what happens to the people seeing the stars and a
good example of 'cultural astronomy'. But even if it isn’t a constellation, this asterism does offer us a chance to use it as a way to explore what lies within it. The asterism, for example, includes the globular cluster Omega Centauri, which is nearly 16,000 light years away and has around 10 million stars. It is so large that it is even thought to be the remains of a disrupted dwarf galaxy.
It would also include the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxy to us – M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. It is 15m light years from us and possibly shows indications of a double nucleus, making it a fascinating object for astronomers.
Depending on where you live, you would struggle to see the entire
asterism. At latitudes similar to those in Europe and the US, the tip of
the lightning bolt would always be below the horizon. But while
observing the south to south-eastern horizon at the end of January in
the early morning hours, enjoying the morning planets display, you would
be able to see the top of the asterism starting at Spica.
However, its huge extent in the sky – ranging from declinations
of -11 degrees to -80 degrees – would ensure that nearly anyone on Earth
further south than Svalbard at 80 degrees north, could see at least
part of the Bowie asterism.
So enjoy observing the stars, try and find the unofficial Bowie
asterism and see if you can make your own to help you explore the
wonders in the sky and learn more about the stories in the sky and what
they can say about us.
Few places of honour
underline the recurring tragedy of war more graphically than the Australian
National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France. This sacred ground
commemorates the sacrifice of Australian and other Allied soldiers in the Great
War of 1914-18. But as you climb to the top of the tower that overlooks the
memorial and surrounding countryside, scene of a great Australian triumph in
1918, it becomes obvious the immeasurable sacrifice of the fallen did not
conclude a ‘‘war to end war’’.
Chunks of masonry are missing.
Bullet holes scar the walls. This is the result of German heavy infantry weapons
being deployed in 1940 to dislodge the French defenders of the memorial during
World War II, as the Wehrmacht advanced in the west. On the fall of Paris in
June 1940, a Wehrmacht officer observed that the campaign to take the French
capital had lasted 26 years.
But in 1918, Australian infantry
had won brilliant battlefield engagements against the Germans, blunting Erich
Ludendorff’s final offensive. Villers-Bretonneux was one such victory, still
being commemorated in the township today with Australian place names and a
schoolhouse sign that says: “Never Forget the Australians”.
Le Hamel was another
striking success. In both battles, the Australian commander was General John
Monash.
Monash is now the fabric of
Australian legend. He is acknowledged variously by having public institutions
from a freeway to a university named after him. He appears on the $100 note, and
he is widely regarded as the personification of Australian leadership and
martial skills in battle and dedicated public service in peace.
In Monash: The Soldier who
Shaped Australia, Grantlee Kieza pursues the man and in so doing projects
the legend.
The Monash family was originally
of Prussian Jewish stock. His father, Louis, and mother, Bertha, emigrated to
Melbourne and settled in St Kilda in 1864. A son was born on June 27, 1865, and
reported in the newspaper as John Monash, the family having decided to anglicise
their name.
Life for the newly arrived Monash
family was not without pressures, particularly financial. In hopes of bettering
the family circumstances, they moved north to Jerilderie in the Riverina where
Louis opened a general store. It is at Jerilderie where one of the strangest
encounters in Australian history occurs.
The young John Monash meets Ned
Kelly.
According to Monash’s later
accounts, his father is in need of a new horse and buys four white ponies from
young Kelly; Ned takes them to the Monash home. Louis is said to have boasted
that he even managed to trick Kelly out of his money. John Monash will later
tell audiences that Kelly gave him a shilling to hold his horse.
Kelly and his
gang, he says, would have made good soldiers. Pondering this observation, one
can only imagine the potential heroism of Ned and his brother Daniel Kelly,
Steve Hart and Joe Byrne charging with the 4th Light Horse at
Beersheba.
Monash’s mother was the great
influence on the young man growing up. While his father struggled with various
businesses, Bertha never lost sight of the importance of education and made
certain young John attended the best schools, through Scotch College to the
University of Melbourne. Monash was ambitious and never left anyone in doubt as
to his talents, but his mother constantly reinforced the need to succeed in this
new Australian society. Twice over, the Monash family could be considered
outsiders, being German and Jewish. Thus the need was always there to work just
that much harder to ensure success. But more than success, Bertha was
a civilising influence on her son, introducing him to the arts and seeing him
develop as a fine pianist.
At university, Monash was
gregarious and popular but he struggled with different subjects from time to
time. The university militia, however, was no chore, and he excelled, rising
steadily through the ranks.
But the great flaw in the young
man who emerged in Melbourne society as both an engineer of note and a militia
officer of promise was his relentless womanising. His most passionate and
notorious affair was with the wife of one of his subordinates on a construction
project, Fred Gabriel. Annie Gabriel may well have been the love of Monash’s
life but their tempestuous relationship nearly ruined both of them. Kieza draws
attention to one spectacular incident as the lovers meet:
As they
canoodled, Fred comes hurtling over a hill above them like a charging
cavalryman. Monash is sent tumbling as the two men grapple over Monash’s walking
stick. Annie screams in terror but Fred drags her down to the Johnston Street
Bridge …. However as Fred, “very violent in his language”, pushes Annie onto a
tram, Monash jumps on as well, and the three combatants go at it hammer and
tongs in a furious row, startling passengers, until all three jump off at Smith
Street. A fracas like that could be taken
from a biography of Charlie Sheen.
Kieza is the author of 10 books,
including a biography of Australian airman Bert Hinkler. He has written for
newspapers including The Australian, Brisbane’s TheCourier
Mail and Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph . His style reflects his
profession: clear and accessible. It makes for easy reading, notwithstanding the
occasional lapse into florid language.
Nonetheless, the great strength
of Monash is that Kieza has made the life of Australia’s greatest general
open to a broad new audience. It is a decade or more since a major biography of
Monash was published, and this well-crafted and extensively documented volume
appropriately coincides with the centenary of World War I.
Monash’s success as an innovative
civil engineer, introducing new products and processes, brought prosperity, and
marriage to Hannah Victoria Moss. A greater degree of stability, though, did not
stop his eye from wandering. The outbreak of war, however, changed Monash’s
life every bit as much as it served to change Australia. As a brigadier, he
commanded Australian troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
It is sometimes claimed that
Australia had no reason to take part in World War I. Even if one ignores the
requirement for imperial defence, this is nonsense. Germany was present in the
Pacific in the formidable capabilities of the East Asia Squadron in China, and
there were German colonies in New Guinea and at Rabaul. Indeed it was the threat
posed by the German cruiser Emden to the Anzac convoys that caused HMAS Sydney
to pursue and sink the German raider off the Cocos Islands in November
1914.
Australia had its own national
interests to consider in supporting Britain and the empire. But the Gallipoli
campaign was, of course, an epic failure.
Monash’s performance was not regarded
highly by his superiors, but the Australian war correspondent and later
historian Charles Bean recognised the essence of Monash’s leadership skills.
Bean noted that he would make a better divisional than a brigade commander, and
a better corps commander than a divisional one. Bean was one of Monash’s most
acerbic critics, partly a reflection of his latent anti-Semitism, but there can
be no doubt that his assessment of Monash was peculiarly insightful.
Precisely as Bean predicted,
Monash shone in command on the Western Front over the years 1917-18. He handled
Australian troops with great skill and care, and his reputation grew, including
with superiors such as Field Marshal Douglas Haig. In 1918, at the insistence of
the Australian government, especially prime minister Billy Hughes, the five
Australian divisions were grouped together in a corps and Monash was named
commander in May.
At Le Hamel, Monash brought all
the skills of generalship to bear. He had predicted a battle lasting 90 minutes
(it lasted 93), and the combined arms assault in the pre-dawn hours saw the
Germans routed. Monash deployed a creeping artillery barrage, air support and
tanks to deliver a knockout blow. More significantly, it was the first time
American troops had fought on the Western Front and several companies of “Black
Jack” Pershing’s infantry served successfully under Australian command. The
battle was fought on Independence Day, July 4, 1918.
British prime minister Lloyd
George maintained that if Monash had been in command of all British armies on
the Western Front rather than Haig, the war would have ended a year earlier.
This assertion has always been open to doubt, given the intensity of the German
U-boat campaign in the Atlantic in early 1917; the fact that the French army had
not recovered from the bloodletting of the previous three years and would see
some units mutiny in 1917; the Americans had not yet mobilised; and Czarist
Russia was knocked out of the war at the end of 1917. Nonetheless, Monash’s
reputation for meticulous planning and for superb execution of battle plans
caused him to be looked on favourably by many, including George V.
Kieza’s biography is nowhere near
as adulatory as Roland Perry’s work of 2004, Monash: The Outsider Who Won a
War, but it does accept many of Monash’s assessments of his own strengths,
as detailed in both of his accounts: The Australian Victories in France in
1918 and War Letters of General Monash.
Kieza might have been more
searching of his subject but it is difficult to disagree with his endorsement of
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s more nuanced assessment: ‘‘I would name
Sir John Monash as the best general on the Western Front in Europe; he possessed
real creative originality, and the war might well have been won sooner, and
certainly with fewer casualties, had Haig been relieved of his command and
Monash appointed to command the British armies in his place.’’
No other Australian general has
ever achieved Monash’s standing. On his death in Melbourne in 1931, an estimated
300,000 citizens lined the streets for his funeral procession. Monash’s
reputation for judgment and capacity has never been seriously challenged,
certainly not in Geoffrey Serle’s benchmark 1982 biography, John Monash,
which was based on the Monash family papers.
The subtitle of Kieza’s book,
The Soldier Who Shaped Australia, is perceptive: Monash continues to
reflect the best in the Australian character. In war he cared for his troops,
even ensuring hot meals for frontline soldiers. In the peacetime he was
visionary, particularly while running the State Electricity Commission of
Victoria.
But perhaps Monash’s greatest
achievement was to overcome the poisonous influence of anti-Semitism. Certainly,
the photograph of George V knighting him on the battlefield dispelled any
lingering doubts as to Monash’s talents and loyalties. He had often been the
victim of whispering campaigns but the knighthood represented accomplishment and
acknowledgment.
Monash himself demonstrated an
extraordinary generosity of spirit, as Keiza records:
At a dinner
given by the Maccabean Society in London’s Oxford Street on 4 March 1919, Monash
tells his audience, including [Generals] Birdwood and White, that he finds
himself “the object of considerable curiosity, because he belongs to the Jewish
race” and because before the war he did not belong to the “profession of arms”.
Yet he puts forward the best picture of Australia he can, saying to considerable
applause that in his native country such a thing as religious discrimination is
unknown. In his recollection there has never been an obstacle of any kind placed
in the way of any Australian Jew in regard to career.
This is a remarkable statement
and emphasised the significance of tolerance in the infant Australian
Commonwealth. If we are largely free of the anti-Semitism which has disfigured
so many other societies, then Monash must be said to have made a primary
contribution. Monash deserves to stand alone.
Kieza has produced a sympathetic but honest portrait of Australia’s greatest and
most influential general.
Stephen
Loosley is chairman of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra and
author of Machine Rules: A Political Primer.
It may seem like an odd pairing, but despite some pretty vast
differences Dwight Yoakam and David Bowie do have some things in common.
Yoakam is a pioneering country music star from Kentucky who’s known
for his honky tonk/cowpunk tunes and tight, flared and faded blue jeans
and his role as Doyle Hargraves in the 1996 drama “Sling Blade.”
Bowie
was a beloved English international superstar, a music chameleon
embedded in pop culture for over five decades and who starred as the
Goblin King in 1986’s “Labyrinth.”
Both artists had a hunger for music and cinema, and, as they would come to find, a mutual admiration for Elvis.
Though Yoakam is currently out on tour in support of his 19th studio album, “Second Hand Heart,” which came out last April, Bowie’s sudden passing last week was at the forefront of his mind. Soon after hearing the sad news, Yoakam said he put on and turned up the track “Rebel Rebel.”
“I love the guitars on that and took inspiration from that,” the
59-year-old said during a phone interview before he returns to City
National Grove of Anaheim on Sunday. “He was an artist all the way until
the end, purely and truly in every sense of the word.
He should be an
inspiration for all musical artists. He showed a lot of respect to the
audience and was grateful for the gift that the artists are given in
being able to make music and continue to have the opportunity to express
themselves, of course in David’s case, to a massive and wide audience.
It’s a lesson in just remembering to be grateful.”
Like so many others who helped Bowie’s final album, “Blackstar” –
delivered just days before his death, reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200
chart for the first time in his extensive career, Yoakam sat and
devoured every last song.
“Clearly he was aware at that point of his mortality throughout the
process of creating ‘Blackstar,’” Yoakam said.
“He did it all with such
dignity and grace and I think that’s an absolutely overwhelming
illustration of what the definition of an artist is, through and through
and in David’s case, he did that all the way to his dying breath, he
just kept giving art to audiences.”
Having been a fan for years, Yoakam finally got to meet Bowie after a
show at the Hollywood Athletic Club during the British star’s Earthling
Tour in 1997. The two kicked back and talked about Bowie working with
Marc Bolan of T.Rex and Yoakam asked Bowie about Elvis, since he’s one
of Yoakam’s influences and Bowie and the King shared the same birthday.
Bowie told him about the first time he saw Elvis perform live in 1971
and mentioned that just six months before Elvis’ death in 1977, the
King had called him out of the blue to discuss Bowie possibly producing
his next album.
“That was based on Elvis having heard Bowie’s ‘Golden Years’ and I
thought ‘Oh my God, it’s a tragedy that he was never able to make
that,’” Yoakam said. “I couldn’t even imagine 1977 David Bowie producing
Elvis. It would have been fantastic. It has to be one of the greatest
tragedies in pop music history that it didn’t happen, one of the biggest
missed opportunities.”
Aside from having Bowie on his mind, Yoakam, who is a frequent player
in Orange County, said he’s excited about bringing new music to Anaheim
this time around. He’s already incorporated songs like the album title
track “Second Hand Heart,” “Dreams of Clay” and a definite
Elvis-inspired cut, “Liar,” into recent set lists.
Yoakam says what he plays on a given night depends on his mood. That
could include the dancy new track “The Big Time,” which he’ll sometimes
swap out for “A Heart Like Mine” off his 2012 record “3 Pears,” which
was co-produced by Beck. Whatever he decides to throw in at the last
minute, his solid brood of backing players is more than capable of
keeping up.
“They’re pretty good about that,” he said with a laugh. “You know, in spite of me, they manage somehow.”
He and the band had a lot of fun filming the music video for “Liar”
during rush hour traffic over the summer on the Sunset Strip, a place
that holds significance for Yoakam’s 30-year career.
“We got funny looks from people,” he said about filming the video on
the street during such a busy time of day. “We had a few near misses
with Elliot James, who is playing all of the keyboards live now, he was
hanging out of a car window playing tambourine and there were a couple
of times we almost lost him. It was a real kick to do that all these
years later, just down the street from the Whisky.”
During the filming for the video, Yoakam said that he realized it had
been nearly three decades since the Roxy on the Sunset Strip had hosted
his first record release party for his 1986 debut, “Guitars, Cadillacs,
Etc., Etc.” That record featured his popular cover of Johnny Horton’s
“Honky Tonk Man.” Since then, Yoakam has covered numerous artists,
everyone from Elvis and Buck Owens to Queen and the Clash.
On “Second Hand Heart” he “punks out” the traditional American folk
song “Man of Constant Sorrow” and put his own spin on Anthony Crawford’s
“V’s of Birds,” a song he has yet to perform live off of the new album. “I was in love with that song from the moment I heard it back in the
mid-’90s,” Yoakam said of the latter cut. “It’s one of the only songs
that I’ve come across that I’ve thought to myself, ‘Wow, why didn’t I
think of that?’ The idea of looking up in the sky and seeing birds fly
in that formation and headed south. It was one of the more literate
lyrics that I had heard in a long time. So, I was always a bit envious
of such an original kind of take on that phrase. It’s a very pretty song
with a great melody.”
For now, however, Yoakam said he will continue to listen to a lot of
Bowie, including his favorite, “Rebel Rebel,” followed by “Golden
Years,” “Jean Genie,” “Heroes” and a rare B-side cover of Chuck Berry’s
“Around and Around,” which Bowie recorded as “Round and Round” in the
early ’70s.
“It would have been great to have been able to work with him,” Yoakam
said, but much like Bowie’s collaboration with Elvis, “It just wasn’t
to be.”
[....] Since Bowie’s death last week, another link with Elvis has
been uncovered. An Elvis song called
Black Star – which remained unreleased for decades after being recorded in
1960 – was cited as a possible inspiration for his farewell album. The song’s
lyrics say: “Every man has a black star / A black star over his shoulder / And
when a man sees his black star / He knows his time, his time has come.” [....]
