The Hunter's Moon

 

While I was watching for the comet Friday night, which I could see with my naked eye but could never get a decent photo of, I realized the moon was rising behind me.

I whirled the tripod around to catch this shot of the nearly full Hunter's Moon as it came up behind the trees.

I have been trying to capture this shot for years. And here it is.

Friday Morning

 

It's unseasonably warm here now, so much so that I stepped outside onto the front porch in only my robe, slippers, and nightgown to take a photo of the moon. The deer in the front yard ignored me entirely. That gleaming white dot in the sky in the last photo is an over-exposed moon. The light was still low, so I was playing with camera settings to try to get the deer and the moon in a single shot. I would have preferred to have the moon look like the shot that looks like the moon is supposed to look, but the deer left before I could figure out where I needed to set the dial on the camera.

Harvest Moon

I took these shots Thursday night, when the moon was rising over the Peaks of Otter (a mountain off the Blue Ridge Parkway).

The moon was pumpkin orange with a tinge of red; I'm afraid my camera couldn't capture the color as well as I wanted. We also had passing cloud cover which made it hard to get good photos.

Worm Moon

This is a picture of the March 7 full moon, the Worm Moon (or Snow Crust Moon). I was trying to make it look like it was sitting on a tree limb, but I wasn't successful. It's close, but I didn't quite get it. 

So far, I have not yet managed to get a photo like that, where it looks like something very far away is hanging from something close up.

I will keep trying.

The Cold Moon

I shot these photos Thursday morning as the full moon was setting.

Fly Me to the Moon

My name and my poem are both up in outer space, flying around the moon today.

We even went on the Dark Side of the Moon!

I first wrote about this back in August, but the launch was scrubbed and didn't happen until last week. It took the rocket 5 days to reach the moon and now it's circling our heavenly satellite, taking pictures as it goes.

It's been about 81 miles from the surface of the moon. Exciting stuff! Check out nasa.gov for more information if you're interested.

I've always been disappointed that we didn't pursue the space program more fully than we did, so I am glad to see forward movement. I know many people think this is a lot of money spent for nothing, but many inventions come from the work done to make this happen.

At least, you know, once upon a time, there was Tang. And ink pens that wrote upside down.

And that cellphone that never leaves your hand is a result of the space program, too.

Beaver Blood Moon

I rose at 4:45 a.m. this morning to look at the lunar eclipse. I took over 100 photos, but most of them blurred. My camera simply isn't that great for taking pictures in the dark, and when the moon is eclipsed, it's dark.

While I was outside, around 6 a.m. I stopped taking pictures and stood watching the moon, listening to the neighbor's rooster crow, and saw a meteor fall past the edge of the moon. It looked a piece of the moon fell off!

I was incredibly sorry I wasn't taking photos then, but sometimes the memory is good enough. I'd rather have seen that in person and not through the lens, I think.

Here are some of my better pictures.

Moonrise, Monday, November 7, 2022

The tree branches are reaching for the moon.

Lunar eclipse, Tuesday, November 8, 2022, around 4:50 a.m.

Near total eclipse, around 5:15 a.m.

Used the star trail feature on the camera, just for fun.

Full eclipse, around 6 a.m.

Moon setting, around 6:20 a.m.

Tree Holds the Moon

 

Lunar Eclipse

We had mostly cloud cover last night during the lunar eclipse, but I caught these shots between 11:50 p.m. and 12:05 a.m. when there was a small break in the clouds. I took 50 photos but most of them were slightly shaky. (I guess I am not steady at that hour.) Then there was nothing but clouds as far as I could see, and I went back to bed.

That last photo shows how small the moon looked during this eclipse. The last time I took photos of a lunar eclipse, the moon looked bigger. If you study the last photo closely, you can see a few stars and a faint tree line at the bottom, but you have to look hard to make out those details.

I was using a Nikon Coolpix B700 camera to take these photos.

Moonset

 

Space . . . the Final Frontier

Challenger explosion. Photo from Nasa.gov

Today is the anniversary of the destruction of Space Shuttle Challenger. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle was taking off with a teacher, taking a civilian into space.

The shuttle blew up 74 seconds into flight, sending plumes of smoke all over the sky, and killing the seven people on board.

Thousands of students watched the shuttle blow up, as this was supposed to be a lesson in the great technological feats of the US. I remember all the media coverage of the first teacher in space.

This was supposed to be a great victory.

I was traveling in my vehicle on Interstate 581 when I heard on the radio that the shuttle had blown up. I burst into tears and had to pull over. I was late getting to work. They'd heard the news, but it was no big deal.

It was a big deal to me. As a lifelong space and NASA fan, I felt it was a national tragedy - and it was. I think that was the day I learned how indifferent people can be to the things that bring about change and growth.

 

I felt the horror once more when on February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia began its return to earth, only to break up over Texas about 22 minutes before its scheduled landing. Again, seven people died.

And now we have Bozos and William Shatner flying up into lower earth space, playing with balls and flapping around like toddlers in a McDonald's bouncy room. It's hard to take space flight seriously when it's become a playground for the wealthy.

It's not as if you or I will ever go into space. We don't have the money. Our grandchildren, however, may be ferried to the moon as our beautiful orbiting satellite is conquered by the billionaires who will then claim its resources, whatever they are, and send the poor and uneducated, of which there are unfortunately many in the USA, on shuttle ships to bring those resources back.

It is only a matter of time.

We've made a mockery of science and of something that should have been a source of national pride and great joy for all of the world. Stepping out of the earth's atmosphere is a feat performed only in the last 60 or so years. It is beyond extraordinary. It is science at its finest. It is mankind's greatest achievement.

And today we treat it like a toy.

What a shame. What a crying, damn, shame.

I still watch space flights. We have them a lot, SpaceX flights taking food to the men and women manning the International Space Station. I watch those. I don't watch Bozos or Musk. I don't watch the rich men's toys.

Space, to me, belongs to everyone. All of us can look up at the vastness of the night sky and look at the moon. We can reach out and try to touch a star. This delight, this divine and not-yet-understood realm of reality, should not be owned by anyone.

We all own it, each of us, who can look up in the sky and dream.

Lunar Eclipse

Last night there was a partial lunar eclipse of the Beaver moon. It was the longest eclipse this century and the first of this length in over 500 years.

I took these shots around 3:45 a.m.  The eclipse lasted 3 hours and 28 minutes and started around 2:18 a.m. The peak was about 4:02 a.m. so I am not far from the peak in these shots.

It was quite cold here and the wind was blowing hard, so I had a difficult time keeping the camera steady even on the tripod, as the wind was shaking it, too. I did not dress warmly enough but I guess a little cold air won't hurt me.

That last one has a little wobble I guess, but I though the lit spot looked a bit like it was making the moon take off so I kept it.

 

Moon and Star Trails

 

Orange Harvest Moon

10-19-2021 Moonset, Taken with Nikon Coolpix B700

Sturgeon Moon

 

Here I am on the night of the new moon, when darkness reigns and the starlight is all that lights the evening, posting a picture of the August Sturgeon Moon. I was trying to make it look like it was sitting atop the trees, but I didn't quite succeed in that. Close, I guess.

My mood matches the coming deep quiet of the long dark sigh that new moons bring. I have things I want to write, things I want to say, opinions I want to express, stories I wish to tell - and I keep my mouth shut. I do not respond to the things that disturb me on social media, I do not call people I want to talk to, I say nothing to upset the air, I try not to breathe, even, so that my breath will not disturb the path of some butterfly. It is as if I am full of fury and frustration, and yet I remain as silent as a thimble pushing a needle into a garment. Hush, my mind says. Speak not.

But here is my place to speak. This is my blog, the place I do, on occasion, allow myself voice. Sometimes it is a little voice . . . most times it is a little voice. Occasionally I will let loose with a very loud Fuck You, because that sums up all of the frustration and pain, in an odd sort of way. Just fuck you, fuck myself. Fuck it. That's such a great word, fuck. It sums up everything in one syllable.

The list of topics is long. I am angry that the abortion issue remains an issue. It has been an issue my entire life - literally since before I was born. When I was born, abortions were not legal. My mother told me (frequently) that she tried to abort me but backed out at the last minute. I don't know if this is true or simply words she said to hurt me, because she was more than capable of that. My mother should not have been a mother. Some women should not be mothers and mine was one of them. Maternal love is a myth we foist upon women simply to make them feel guilty when they don't want their children. It doesn't exist in every female. Maybe it doesn't exist at all.

When I was in high school, abortion also was an issue (late 1970s early 1980s). I remember feeling that I was a walking poster child for why abortion should be legal. I felt unwanted, always, and mostly unloved. I suffered terribly from depression that went overlooked and unchecked. I was moody and a troublemaker who made straight As. No one thought to address my mental health except for me and a few of my teachers, who sent me to see the school psychologist, which helped until my parents found out and put a stop to that. 

That is not say that there weren't good times or that my parents didn't love me - I have come to terms with the fact that they did the best they could with the people that they were. They were barely adults themselves, after all. My mother was 18 when I was born. She was only 38 years old when I married. Some women are just starting families then. It would never have occurred to my father that there were better ways of raising children, or that his offspring might have been better off not being around their mother. He was busy being a businessman, making his money, and people didn't think that way then.

This all came to mind this morning while I was reading the comments on the abortion issue and the new vigilante laws in place in Texas that allow for bounties on the parties who assist a woman in obtaining an abortion. One woman noted that her mother had wanted to abort her, and she wished she had been successful. Many other women expressed astonishment: do you mean you wish you'd never been born? And I knew that yes, that was exactly what she meant. She wished she'd never been born. The gods know I have wished it myself often enough.

Sometimes I take that idea out and examine it, that ol' It's a Wonderful Life thing. Haven't I made positive impacts somewhere? Doesn't someone have a better life because I have existed? Generally speaking, no. I cost my husband his chance to be a father - his choice, I know, he could have divorced me and remarried but he loves me - and while I can think of good impacts some of my articles made - thousands of dollars raised for Angel Trees, funds pouring in for someone with some disease, because I was really good at writing those heartfelt articles that didn't actually sound like pleas for money but were - I think too that had I not written those stories, someone else would have. I helped save a few historical landmarks. I helped keep the local cement plant from burning tires back in the early 1990s. Everything I have done, someone else could have or would have done, maybe even better than I did. In the grand scheme of things, my existence is about as significant as that of an ant with a broken leg.

Another topic that frustrates me is the ongoing battle of masks and vaccines. As someone who has spent her entire life avoiding things to try to stay healthy, this makes me want to grab people who are unmasked in the stores and shake the life out of them. Long ago, it was cigarette smoke. I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. My grandfather smoked and I was always sick after visiting my grandparents. I'm also allergic to milk. Foods I can avoid, but I can't avoid the thin curl of smoke from the glowing end of a Marlboro. 

Nor can I avoid the toxic wastes to my west that spewing out of the cement plant, which is my county's number one polluter, or the toxic wastes to my east that tumble from a truck manufacturing plant, the second largest polluter. I am caught in between them, living on a farm where chemicals are used constantly, Round Up© and other herbicides that settle in the body and transform DNA and does who knows what else to a person's internal chemicals.

So I spent my entire life avoiding cigarette smoke, which meant I didn't go to most restaurants, because they allowed smoking (or had a smoking area, which was always a joke - those vents to nowhere did nothing), and I sat in my car waiting for people to stop smoking in front of doors. I held my breath in mad dashes to my car if I had to wade through a cloud of cigarette smoke because I would be late returning to work if I didn't. I took (and still take) lots of showers to wash off the smoke smell. I didn't wear a mask because no one ever suggested it and I never thought of it. It's not our culture. I would have worn an astronaut suit if it would have kept me from being sick four months out of every year. I was sick so often I couldn't hold a job. I used to miss 35 days of school every year. Who does that and still makes As? Me.

Finally, back in the early 2000s Virginia wised up and implemented no smoking laws in restaurants. I could eat out without having a sinus infection afterwards! It was literally a breath of fresh air. A single law changed my life. It didn't help with other things - the smells of perfume that give me migraines, the colognes that send me into sneezing fits, the off-gassing of various carpets that ultimately make me ill. But it helped that I could go somewhere to eat without it being an anxiety-ridden event.

And now we're back to not being able to go places because people are assholes. They insist upon their right to make other people sick. These are stupid people, and if you're one of them and you're still reading this blog, I'm sorry, but I think you're an idiot if you haven't received the vaccine and/or you won't wear a mask. (You may have a medical reason not to take the vaccine, but anyone can wear a mask, I have asthma and I wear a mask, I know people on oxygen tanks who wear masks, so there really is no excuse, it doesn't cut your airflow or do anything dangerous like the dummies try to say on youtube or FAUX or wherever this shit fucking comes from. You just don't like it, is all. Grow up.)

These very same people think it's horrific that we left 100 Americans in Afghanistan, but they don't care that 650,000 Americans have died of Covid or that they might kill their own grandma if they won't wear a surgical mask. What kind of lopsided logic is that? Don't these people realize how hypocritical they sound? Why is one ok and not the other?

So yes, I am pro-choice. I would not have had an abortion myself unless the child was going to kill me and not live. If I were to die but the child were to live, that would have been a decent trade-off, I guess. But in any event, it's a woman's choice and not something the government should have any say in. It's certainly none of my business what you or you or you or anyone else does. I try hard to mind my own business, thank you.

I am pro-vaccine and pro-mask. I'm also pro stay-the-fuck-out-of-other-nations' business, cut the army in half, and spend the dollars on the children that have been forced to be born who could use a hand up instead of another kick in the ass.

This is what life is like on the dark side of the moon. I'm pretty sure no one wants to join me here. That's why I worship it when it is full and bright.

A Smile from the Moon

 

The Conjunction Minus One Day

I missed the "great conjunction" of Saturn and Jupiter on December 21, as we had cloud cover.

So I tried again last night. We had clear skies but the two planets had already begun to drift apart.

To my astonishment, through the telephoto lens on my camera, I could see four of Jupiter's moons. I could not get the camera to photograph them, but I could see them. I wondered what it was like to be the first person to ever look through a zoom lens and see that a star was actually a planet, and that it had moons. Can you imagine how amazing that must have been? And how scary? It didn't scare me because I knew it was Jupiter and that it had moons - but that first view. Wow.

Anyway, I made a stab at photos and they came out poorly. I will share nevertheless.

While we waited for twilight to pass, I caught this image of an airplane and the moon.

This image was the best of the bunch. The planets are oblong a bit, but those two little dogs around the bigger white dot are two of Jupiter's moons. The smaller planet is Saturn. As you can see, they had moved apart.

This is how they looked, more or less, to the naked eye.

This has a little more definition of Jupiter as a planet. I never saw Saturn's rings, but I was happy enough with Jupiter's moons.

I took these with a Nikon Coolpix B700. This camera came out in 2016 and that is the year I received it for Christmas. It is four years old and I am having problems with it. Last night it became stuck in open position and nothing worked, so I had to go inside and remove the battery to reset it. I would like to learn more about using this camera but since I am sensing I may need another in the near future, I probably won't. I still turn to my Nikon P500 Coolpix, which is at least 10 years old, as my go-to camera, or my Canon Sure Shot, which is even older, for everyday photos. They just don't do the job with night photos (or birds) that this one does. (I did not ask for a new camera for Christmas; things are just too wonky right now. But maybe my birthday in June?)

The Moon Set

 

The Pink Moon

The moonset was about 6:45 a.m. this morning, give or take a few minutes. I was still in bed when I glanced out and saw it heading down toward the mountain. I jumped up, grabbed my camera and tripod, and out the front door I went. Most of my shots were blurry (no food in my system yet), but these two turned out well.

This is another so-called super moon. It certainly has been bright the last few nights.

The Worm Moon