'Seven Stars' in Whitechapel?

[Sam Flynn]

So whenever you read Nietszche nowadays, it is accompanied in your mind by Boney M?

...indeed, Jake. I'm sure old Friedrich is spinning in his grave!

[Cap'n Jack]

Back to topic, Sam, back to topic.
NASA believe the Seven Sisters to appear as a 'necklace' as well.
What a bunch of maniacs they must be, eh, Sam?

'ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2007) — The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil.

The view is quite different from what you might see if you look out to the west shortly after dusk. Right now, the famous family of stars is "stepping out" in the evening skies with a very bright and dazzling Venus. During the period from around April 10 to 13, the Pleiades shine like a cluster of diamonds just above Venus. On April 19, the crescent moon will join the party, sliding between Venus and the Pleiades for a special viewing.

Paparazzi and fans in both the northern and southern hemispheres should grab a pair of binoculars to get the best look at the star-studded event. The Venus-Pleiades encounter will also be visible with the naked eye where skies are dark and clear.

The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid."

The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home.

The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue.

The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars.


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Adapted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[Cap'n Jack]

A print from 1880 which I will call 'The Dream of Thomas':

[Stephen Thomas]

And Snow White liked Seven Up.

[Cap'n Jack]

And you, boy, just went Seven-Down.

[Sam Flynn]

Thank you, AP, for that excellent discourse on the obscure, but rather beautiful, metaphoric and mythic allusions to Messier 45.

Now, about the notion of Berkowitz with the word "Boom!" etched on his bullets in Sanskrit...

[Cap'n Jack]

Sam, you mock an unchartered world in which I employ a faint heart of faith, for what might make sense to you or me, certainly does not in the world of men who would kill women, for no other good reason than that they are there.
I seek motive out of our ken.
The bull is in the china shop.
I want to know why.

[Sam Flynn]

No problem, AP - I just don't think it very likely that a British person with the Pleiades drawn on the blade of his knife would have known that the Japanese called the asterism "Subaru", that this might be interpreted as "necklace", and that this somehow energised him to cut throats on the basis that a slit neck might be allegorically referred to as a "necklace" also.

If he did, then was the knife he used to jab women in the arse engraved with an image of the Ring Nebula?

[Cap'n Jack]

Well, Sam, you'll have to argue that point with Alfred.
Lord Tennyson to you, old boy.

"Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."

Or a necklace as the Polynesians liked to call it.

[Cap'n Jack]

The East End had seven parishes, each with a parish church.
I quoted earlier from Rev 1:16.
I now quote from Rev 1:20:

'The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.'

And seven victims?
One in each parish? By a church?

[Sam Flynn]

"Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."

A braid is not necessarily a necklace, AP - indeed, "tangling" and "braid" together implies hair or some sort of woven fabric. Thanks for the verse, though.

Or a necklace as the Polynesians liked to call it.

...the Japanese, apparently, not those whom we'd normally term "Polynesians", as far as I can tell.

Anyhow, about that idea of an engraving of the Ring Nebula being on the blade of a certain knife... if you can find evidence for that, or even the constellation Eridanus, I might be swayed. I know the latter represents a river, but it sounds vaguely bottom-related. At least it had a better chance of being known in the English-speaking world of the 19th Century under that slightly oo-er missus name - unlike "Subaru", for instance.

[FriedKidne]

I think this is was 'The Crown & Seven Stars' pub in Royal Mint Street (Rosemary Lane), now called 'The Artful Dodger' The side of the pub nearest to us was Blue Anchor Yard and the other side Seven Star Court.

[ATTACH]3219[/ATTACH]

Rob

To the right in the photograph is 42 Royal Mint Street, home of Kate McCarthy who was a witness at the Frances Coles inquiry.

There were two "Seven Stars" in Rosemary Lane - #22 & #47.