“No quarter” means no mercy, “first quarter” means the phase the Moon has reached.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
The exact moment was 10:45 by Universal Time, which was 6 hours earlier by US Central time. As you can see, the Moon has just passed the “antapex of Earth’s Way”: the direction backward along our orbit around the Sun. That is because the Moon at first quarter is crossing over our orbit behind us.
In March, this happens against the snowy background of the Milky Way. Near this point, also, is the conspicuous globular cluster Messier 35.
At the time and place of the picture, the Moon is 45° above the horizon. It is in the middle of the grand winter evening scene of constellations: Orion, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, with Perseus and Cassiopeia off to the right and Canis Major and Minor off to the left.
Morals-Drawing Department
Russia is giving no quarter to Ukrainian civilians. Its bombing has destroyed a children’s hospital that included a maternity ward. A building crashes in on infants in emergency treatment, pregnant women, women in the labor of childbirth.
Ukraine’s president begs for Nato to impose a no-fly zone. Nato decides against it, so far, because if American planes were to shoot down Russian planes there might ensue a third Europe-wide war. Which way would you vote (not that we can influence a decision, or have the knowledge to do so)? I would be inclined to vote yes, gambling that the Russian majority could no longer be prevented from knowing about Putin’s wrongheadedness and he would fall.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or you can click ‘Refresh’ to get the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
No fly Zone may not be needed. Putin may not be in power much longer. Russia’s convoy to overtake Kiev is crumbling, thanks to javelin missiles and other ammunition supplied by Trump. Thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed.
Zielinski declined the US offer for safe haven.That rallied his country. He is a great leader. Shades of Churchill.
I am with you on the NFZ. My feeling is that Putin is terrified of genuine Western involvement in the war and is threatening us with nukes because that is the only move he has left. He has no more interest in a nuclear war than we do. We should call his bluff.
A no fly zone only works when the opposition is weaker than you!You have to be able to enforce it and accept the consequences of said enforcement.It worked with Serbia but Serbia was weak compared with the NATO members but Russia isn’t.I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t want to be blown to atoms or have to learn to speak Russian.
I always enjoy seeing the “Earth’s Way” (both directions) in your posts. It was something I’d pondered for a long time and as far as I know, your illustrations are the only ones to include them.
On one hand I do want the no fly zone to be put into action… but on the other hand it’s clear Putin is mentally unstable and might begin to use nuclear weapons since a no fly zone is a declaration of war. My hope is that the people of Russia will revolt and remove him from power but I suspect there is little chance of that outcome at the moment. As long as he’s in power every decision leads to heartbreak, suffering, and death.
While I am certainly horrified at what Putin is doing, the Ukraine is not NATO territory nor should it be. Therefore the US should not get involved with Putin and the Russian forces lest WWIII erupts out of it and it goes nuclear. We can all armchair quarterback this thing. This is my take.
Absolutely agree with post from A Hans. The hypocritical media war on Russia, while the US supports coups, invasions and territorial grabs and invasions (2014 Maidan, Honduras, Golan Heights, Western Sahara, Syria, Iraq, Libya, etc, etc, etc), and imposes sanctions that punish people (and don’t lead to regime change), while ignoring NATO agression (Kosovo and Afganistan) and enabling Ukranian attacks on the Donbas and supporting bioweapon facilities leads one to believe that, whatever our governmental-media-military-intelligence-academic-think-tank complex pontificates about Russia is not to be ingested without a Andromeda-sized grain of salt. That’s my “2 bits” = 1 quarter moon.
I hope they don’t follow your advice Guy – with a no-fly zone a wider European war (at least :-( ) would be a virtual certainty. It’s clear Russia would not back down, it has clearly spelled out that it would see its existence threatened anyway should Ukraine join Nato and thereby advance essentially US nuclear weapons closer to its borders. And once the zone was imposed, neither would the US/Nato.
Peter S Butchko: “The hypocritical media war on Russia…”
Indeed (and the rest). The question arises why so many westerners still believe their own media spin and quarter truths on matters of war, especially when anything countering them is censored.
The Russian Embassy said in a tweet that the Mariupol hospital was being used by Ukrainian armed forces and rebels.
The tweet added that ” Moscow warned the UN Security Council about this three days ago.”
This tweet was deleted by Twitter, and dismissed by the UK Culture Secretary as fake news.
Isn’t it strange that there should be an embargo on anyone reading what the accused say?
The second part is verifiably true – here is their statement to the UNSC from 7 March:
https://russiaun.ru/en/news/070322n
but such factual details don’t worry the UK politicians.
There are other reports and analyses supporting the Russian account, like these from MoonofAlabama (a respected US blogger):
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/disarming-ukraine-day-15-a-curious-hospital-bombing-and-no-fly-zone-pressure.html#more
Why would the Russian military target a functioning hospital after first alerting the UNSC to its existence?
I’m wondering if our own George Washington, Boris Johnson, is writing the script.
On the other hand, just to illustrate both the media hypocrisy and the fake nature of the political concern for this hospital incident,
A short history of the United States deliberately bombing hospitals
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1501981269701373952
It’s not short – that part was fake – but it’s shocking.
It is the west’s sudden concern for civilians that is fake news.
M35 is a open cluster, and a very pretty one at that!
My hasty slip. There is a globular cluster visible almost through M35 and at a much greater distance. I know John is fond of M35 and draws his readers’ attention to conjunctions with it; that’s what promted me to include those conjunctions in my lists.