John Skylar, in some timelines, is a Professor of Anachronism at the University of Constantinople, but mostly he is a bioscientist and SF author living in New York City. You can follow johnskylar.com on tumblr or on twitter as johnskylar. If you live in New York, you might enjoy a chat with him at the Immodest Proposals discussion series, which he started with Better Worlds.
At first, before I saw the hand, this photo looked like a nebula surrounded by stars. It reminds me of a story I wrote (and unfortunately can’t seem to make work).