Vincent van Gogh. (Dutch, 1853-1890). The Starry Night. Saint Rémy, June 1889. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/4" (73.7 x 92.1 cm). On display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City

I’m starting to dig through the archives here at Silver Rockets, as I’m discovering that a lot of my favorite things were posted toward the beginning when nobody was reading this blog. I’ll be starting a series of highlights and best-ofs, every so often, to bring some happy images back to the surface for your enjoyment.

First up is The Starry Night, one of my favorite paintings PERIOD. This was post #4 here, on July 4, 2006. (Long time, no see!) It was also my first masthead.

It came to mind the other day, while I was remembering this:

Danielle visits Starry Night! June 2011, NYC.

I saw a lot of neat things while I was in New York City last June (most of them sparkly, not spacey), but there are a few specific things that are especially vivid memories, and this is one of them. I could have sat and looked at The Starry Night for an hour, I bet. The colors are vibrant. The texture is incredible. It’s smaller than I’d imagined. Funny how that works. The Starry Night is smallish. The Lady of Shalott is GIGANTIC. Go figure.

I buzzed around MoMA briefly, taking in a roomful of Monet’s water lilies, Art Nouveau furniture and more, but kept gravitating back to the Starry Night room. I could hardly take my eyes off it! I firmly believe that art is best experienced in person, if possible. Even the best reproductions can’t capture that feeling. If you’re able to, I highly recommend paying Starry Night a visit! And don’t be afraid to get close! I got about a foot away, before getting the Eyeball from a guard. Beware the Eyeball.

This mysterious image came from the bottom of a Dark Roasted Blend post, and is attributed to this LiveJournal community (though I couldn’t find the original post; perhaps they couldn’t either.)

Perhaps one the most striking examples of astronomy science visualisation is this humongous model of the Moon from 1908, almost a surreal doorway to another world, a snapshot of bizarre art/science history.

Does anyone know where this model was, or anything more about it? So far my online searching has turned up nothing…. (I’ve tagged it in the “museums” category because it seems far-fetched that a model of this size would not be in a museum, but I’m prepared to reclassify it if I find out it’s from something else!)

Photo © C. Philip Hersey Photographer, Ltd

I spotted this necklace in a small mention of a new exhibit at The Field Museum in Chicago, The Nature of Diamonds. “Milky Way” and “necklace” were all I needed to read before I scurried off to the Vast and Wonderous Intarwebs to find a larger picture, and luckily, a description!

“Milky Way” Necklace: This voluminous necklace, designed by Dieter Huebner, sponsored by Brinkhaus Jewelers, is adorned with 2,000 luminous diamonds.

The “Milky Way” necklace was designed in 2000 as a celebration and ode to the millennium.

Judging from the descriptive term “voluminous”, and taking into account the 2,000 diamonds, I can safely say this bauble is out of the realm of possible purchases, for, well, ANYBODY. All the same, I’d love to see it around a neck, for scale if nothing else.

EDIT, 7/19/2011: English Russia has put up quite the assortment of, erm, NSFW ads and posts on their revamped site, so although I will continue to provide a link to this article, I have also saved the post sans girly pics as a PDF for all-ages viewing. Download it here.

EnglishRussia.com presents over 70 photos of the Russian Space Museum, with many artifacts and mockups from the Soviet space age. Interesting stuff, enjoy! (The statue of Yuri Gagarin insists you enjoy your visit.)