rod
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Cheap thrills:
At sunset, the west looked fine from my upstairs window looking at the Pacific ...
Shortly afterwards, from my workshop, I saw the full moon rise above the trees in the East and dominate the sky. It's light dimmed the sight of the heavens. The Milky Way was nowhere to be seen. Jupiter continued to stand bold and was a match for the moon, but its tiny moons were faint, in the face of the moonshine:
I went back to my engraving practice:
Kathleen was off in the Sierras, visiting her sister, so I set the alarm for about 2am, then dozed off a bit. Suddenly I awoke and looked out of the upstairs window, at a wondrous sight!
The starry heavens were all aglow with the Milky Way cutting through like some vast comet's tail. Over in the west side of town, house lights and those dang street lights are all thinly dispersed, and looking west to the Ocean gives a mostly dark sky.
Now the moon was in the south west, but it was not at all like the Moon. It looked as though it was Mars, come from a far, to make a neighbourly evening call. My pictures below do not do it justice, as it was a naked eye wonder, but what a wonder! At last, it was sitting amid the stars, full, but not grabbing the lime light. It had reduced its ego to be just one of the crowd. The mega object had at last decided
to let us see how the whole sky looked, while still offering us a delightful experience. For a few hours, a mellow yellow/red visitor sat right where the Moon should have been. It threw no shadows at ground level, and the stars were aglow everywhere. As the Earth's shadow passes over the Moon, the disk is always visible ... spill-over Earth-shine allows the viewer to see the object turn into yellows, reds, shadows, and finally bright edge light as the shadow recedes. Once this happens, quite fast the starlight diminishes once more, and you can see your shadow on the ground, as we get back to the more familiar miracle of just another full moon night. We don't have an eclipse every month like this, as we would have if the path of the Moon's orbit around the Earth was on the same plane as the path of the Earth around the Sun. Nature chose the circumstances that make the Moon's orbit around us be about 6 degrees out of kilter to the Ecliptic plane of the Earth around the Sun, so eclipses happen only now and then. Too mathematical? Oh, all that darn geometry and mathematics! Yet Gallileo was right, when he said the language of the Universe, of which we are a part, is mathematics. God is such a meany. Why could He not make the language of the Universe be that of moods, feelings, emotions, upsets, romance, fights, human drama, religious conflicts, you know, all of that stuff that keeps us busy with our lives, that sells millions of books, films, plays, and TV shows. Sorry, but Gallileo is right. Camus turned it into his moment of enlightenment when he wrote. "I at last threw my heart open to the benign indifference of the Universe."
... translation: it a'int out to git you, (but it a'int out to save you, either). It is simply there, and we are imbedded in it, so now what? Of course, that is a hotly debated little topic?
But wait, enough of philosophy, there is work to be done. I went down to the garden, and attached my camera to one eyepiece of my giant binocular ( kind of heavy, as they are x15 power, and need a tripod). I used the other eyepiece as a sighting telescope to find the moon and line things up. Not much light, so could not see if my focus was crisp enough, and the photos are no match the experience.....
That done, I did not want to let the magic pass, so I put technology aside, and walked down through the row of silent houses, until I reach the west edge of town, and turned towards the path to the cliff edge. I could feel my way along the path in the dark, using my feet to hunt for the vegetation on either side, and eventually stopped short, guided by the sound of the waves crashing on the cliffs below. Don't worry, I know the path well, and stayed back ten feet from the edge. Now the town lights were faint, and the sky was at its best. The fog horn sang its sad cry with a hoarse throat, modulated by the swell of the waves. Horn and waves mixed into a familiar sound. The wind was low, and the 'red planet' Moon hung out over the water in friendly company with its background Constellation. To the East, Orion was now up, and lying on its back, but Sirius was not yet up over the horizon. The Pleiades were up bright, Capella glowed in the Pentagon, you could see clusters in the Milky Way, and Jupiter to the west of the Moon. Strangely, I heard some wild fowl cry out from time to time. I guess they knew it was a special moment.
It was hard for me to turn again into town and back to my yard for a few more photos, and when I got back to bed about 5.30am, I lay in wonder before dropping off to sleep.
Wonder what was on TV last night?
best wishes
Rod
At sunset, the west looked fine from my upstairs window looking at the Pacific ...
Shortly afterwards, from my workshop, I saw the full moon rise above the trees in the East and dominate the sky. It's light dimmed the sight of the heavens. The Milky Way was nowhere to be seen. Jupiter continued to stand bold and was a match for the moon, but its tiny moons were faint, in the face of the moonshine:
I went back to my engraving practice:
Kathleen was off in the Sierras, visiting her sister, so I set the alarm for about 2am, then dozed off a bit. Suddenly I awoke and looked out of the upstairs window, at a wondrous sight!
The starry heavens were all aglow with the Milky Way cutting through like some vast comet's tail. Over in the west side of town, house lights and those dang street lights are all thinly dispersed, and looking west to the Ocean gives a mostly dark sky.
Now the moon was in the south west, but it was not at all like the Moon. It looked as though it was Mars, come from a far, to make a neighbourly evening call. My pictures below do not do it justice, as it was a naked eye wonder, but what a wonder! At last, it was sitting amid the stars, full, but not grabbing the lime light. It had reduced its ego to be just one of the crowd. The mega object had at last decided
to let us see how the whole sky looked, while still offering us a delightful experience. For a few hours, a mellow yellow/red visitor sat right where the Moon should have been. It threw no shadows at ground level, and the stars were aglow everywhere. As the Earth's shadow passes over the Moon, the disk is always visible ... spill-over Earth-shine allows the viewer to see the object turn into yellows, reds, shadows, and finally bright edge light as the shadow recedes. Once this happens, quite fast the starlight diminishes once more, and you can see your shadow on the ground, as we get back to the more familiar miracle of just another full moon night. We don't have an eclipse every month like this, as we would have if the path of the Moon's orbit around the Earth was on the same plane as the path of the Earth around the Sun. Nature chose the circumstances that make the Moon's orbit around us be about 6 degrees out of kilter to the Ecliptic plane of the Earth around the Sun, so eclipses happen only now and then. Too mathematical? Oh, all that darn geometry and mathematics! Yet Gallileo was right, when he said the language of the Universe, of which we are a part, is mathematics. God is such a meany. Why could He not make the language of the Universe be that of moods, feelings, emotions, upsets, romance, fights, human drama, religious conflicts, you know, all of that stuff that keeps us busy with our lives, that sells millions of books, films, plays, and TV shows. Sorry, but Gallileo is right. Camus turned it into his moment of enlightenment when he wrote. "I at last threw my heart open to the benign indifference of the Universe."
... translation: it a'int out to git you, (but it a'int out to save you, either). It is simply there, and we are imbedded in it, so now what? Of course, that is a hotly debated little topic?
But wait, enough of philosophy, there is work to be done. I went down to the garden, and attached my camera to one eyepiece of my giant binocular ( kind of heavy, as they are x15 power, and need a tripod). I used the other eyepiece as a sighting telescope to find the moon and line things up. Not much light, so could not see if my focus was crisp enough, and the photos are no match the experience.....
That done, I did not want to let the magic pass, so I put technology aside, and walked down through the row of silent houses, until I reach the west edge of town, and turned towards the path to the cliff edge. I could feel my way along the path in the dark, using my feet to hunt for the vegetation on either side, and eventually stopped short, guided by the sound of the waves crashing on the cliffs below. Don't worry, I know the path well, and stayed back ten feet from the edge. Now the town lights were faint, and the sky was at its best. The fog horn sang its sad cry with a hoarse throat, modulated by the swell of the waves. Horn and waves mixed into a familiar sound. The wind was low, and the 'red planet' Moon hung out over the water in friendly company with its background Constellation. To the East, Orion was now up, and lying on its back, but Sirius was not yet up over the horizon. The Pleiades were up bright, Capella glowed in the Pentagon, you could see clusters in the Milky Way, and Jupiter to the west of the Moon. Strangely, I heard some wild fowl cry out from time to time. I guess they knew it was a special moment.
It was hard for me to turn again into town and back to my yard for a few more photos, and when I got back to bed about 5.30am, I lay in wonder before dropping off to sleep.
Wonder what was on TV last night?
best wishes
Rod
Last edited:
.
