1. Flaring black hole accretion disk in the binary system V404 Cygni

‘My own belief is that apophatic or negative theology holds in its keeping a key to the perennial vitality of philosophical reflection that does not simply define and then exhaust arbitrarily laid down, heuristic limits for its thinking. The willingness to let go of all definitions, to negate all its own formulations, opens thought to what is moving within it, beyond or beneath the definitive grasp of words and concepts. Philosophy at this level is not merely cognitive but also shades into and merges with other dimensions of human experience and being, such as the affective and conative (or wilful). In the ancient world, notably among the Neoplatonists, philosophy was so understood as a spiritual exercise involving all the human faculties of intellection and sensibility and praxis.’

William Franke, A Philosophy of the Unsayable, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2014, 200-201

2. The sparring Antennae galaxies

3. A cosmic couple – the star Hen 2-427 and the nebula M1-67 surrounding it

4. The Veil Nebula supernova remnant

5. The Little Gem Nebula – planetary nebula NGC 6818

6. The barred spiral galaxy NGC 986, discovered in 1828 by James Dunlop

7. NGC 7714

8. The ‘anaemic’ spiral galaxy NGC 4921

9. The Tadpole Galaxy, Arp 188. Its tail is about 280 thousand light-years long.

10. NGC 5972 – ghost of a quasar

Images: 1./2./3./4./5./6./7./8./9./10.