Catching a Comet

I have a few pictures of the Northern Lights from Thursday night, but I wasn't able to get out of the house to see them because my neighbor decided it was a good night to burn his brush pile. With my asthma I couldn't be out there, so what I have I took through a window.

But tonight, I caught the comet! This is comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas, which hasn't been seen for about 80,000 years.

Just yesterday, right?

Anyway, I got lucky with the photo. There were clouds and I captured this just before the cloud cover rolled over the sky. It's a little blurry because I was having trouble focusing but it's the comet.

Pink Sunset

 

The Northern Lights

A big solar storm sent the Northern Lights all the way to Virginia last night! They were breathtaking. No wonder people trek north simply to see them. Spectacular! I was awed. I've caught occasional glimpses of a little color during these storms, but nothing like this.

From what I see on Facebook, people using cellphones caught more purple colors than my Nikon did. But this is pretty much what we were able to see with our naked eye. My brother who lives about 2 miles away as the crow flies said he couldn't see them except through his cellphone when we were outside about 10:15 p.m. 

Simply amazing.

Eclipse Photos

We had so many clouds! And I had trouble juggling

 the camera and keeping the solar glasses on my face without my regular glasses and then I couldn't see a darned thing at all. I may have ruined the camera but it's an old camera anyway. I suspect it is fine, though, because the cloud cover was so thick.

The photos with black are where I got my homemade filter to work during one moment when we had a cloud break. The rest I just took straight with the camera on various settings.

When it was at its peak here, I was outside. It was beginning to rain, and it was dark. The birds were freaking out and I saw a turkey fly up into a tree as if to roost. The smaller birds grew quiet and were flying around as if they were looking for home. Then it got a little lighter and the turkey flew off, and the other birds went back to normal. It must have been really cool to be in totality.

When I am filthy rich, I will chase the eclipse so that I see totality one day. (Ha ha.)

 

Minutiae

Today is solar eclipse day. We will have about 86% coverage here in my area. In another universe, I am in the area of totality, as I have never experienced a full eclipse that I can recall. I remember seeing partial eclipses in elementary school. We made little pin holes in boxes and watched as the black took over the white dot. I don't recall it being very exciting, viewing it that way.

In 2017, we had some cloud cover, but I was able to get photos. I was also better prepared; I had solar film for my camera, which I forgot to purchase this time. Instead, this morning I tore up a pair of solar glasses and removed the film from that and made a little cover for my camera. I am not sure if that will work. I consider it better than nothing.

It may be a non-event here, though. We have mostly cloudy skies with rain expected this afternoon, though I see peaks of sun every now and then this morning. We may not have the weather for this cool thing.

I should have solar film from 2017, but I can't find it. I probably put it up somewhere where I'd be sure to remember it . . . 

***

Yesterday, we watched the final in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. South Carolina beat Iowa fairly handily. South Carolina had a deep line-up of players and could send in fresh bodies, while Iowa kept most of its starters on the floor for the entire time. In the last few seconds, Iowa sent out its second string so they could stand on the floor while the team lost. There was no way they could make up that deficit in the time left, so it didn't matter who was holding the ball.

I like basketball but I seldom watch it. I don't like men's basketball much, as I find it very rough, but I like to watch women play. Perhaps now there will be more airtime for the WNBA, since there appears to be a viewership for women's sports.

Sunset, December 3, 2023

 

The ISS

That tiny little blip of light in these photos is the International Space Station. My camera is good enough that I should be able to get the thing in detail, but I have trouble finding it in the lens to do that.

This last time when I looked for it, it was supposed to be about 10 degrees above the horizon, but it was almost directly overhead so it took me a minute to find it, and losing that time cost me my ability to focus the camera. 

At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sunset

 

Smoke From Distant Fires

For the last month, we've had smoke from fires from Canada, and now we're getting smoke from fires in the upper eastern part of the United States. 

They make for interesting sunsets. Last night it looked like I was living on a different planet as I watched an incredibly red sunset.

Not the Moon

I shot these photos on April 9, 2023, when I saw this interesting light low on the horizon as we were readying for bed. I thought at first it was a helicopter or something coming towards us, but when I looked through the lens of the camera, I saw that it was a planet.

Skyview Light on my cellphone said it was Jupiter.

My camera is not made for taking pictures of planets, except maybe the moon, so I'm surprised these came out as well as they did.

Jupiter, named after the Roman god of the sky and the king of the gods (like the more familiar Greek god Zeus), is a fascinating planet that has many features and facts. 

Here are some of them based on web search results:

• Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined12.
• Jupiter is a gas giant with no solid surface. It has a thick atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium, with clouds of ammonia and water134.
• Jupiter has a powerful magnetosphere that produces intense auroras and radiation belts. It also has a complex system of rings made of dust and debris14.
• Jupiter rotates very fast, about once every 10 hours, but orbits very slowly, about once every 12 Earth years24.
• Jupiter has more than 75 moons, including four large ones called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Some of these moons may have oceans or volcanoes that could support life24.
• Jupiter is famous for its Great Red Spot, a huge storm that has been raging for centuries. It is bigger than Earth and can be seen from space234.

Bing AI assisted with the information. I left the footnotes, because, why not?

Jupiter/Moon Conjunction

We had clouds passing overhead as Jupiter and the Moon made its "conjunction" in what looks like Jupiter colliding with the moon, at least to the naked eye.

Of course, they did not collide. But they were quite close together when I managed to get an opening in the clouds for a few photos.

I took these shots Wednesday night. That's Venus down toward the bottom of the photo.

Hunting the Green Comet

The green comet, formerly known as comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), comes closest to Earth today, moving in to 26 million miles of this ol' round ball we call home.

A comet is a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a “tail” of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun. Halley's comet is probably the most famous one, as it makes a tour of our solar system every 75 years or so. It was last here in 1986, and I honestly don't remember seeing it although I'm sure I made an effort to do so. The one I remember best was Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. It comes around about every 3,000 years.

The green comet last came through about 50,000 years ago. 

The comet is thought to look green because of the type of gases coming off of it, along with radiation from the Sun.

 

It if was as dim as it is today, I doubt the humanoids who were around 50,000 years ago even noticed. If one of them did, he or she had spectacular eyesight.

I have been trying to see this green comet on the few clear nights we've had but have been unsuccessful in finding it. Mostly, that is because we've only had two clear nights, and we have cloud cover today that is supposed to last all night.

I took this star trail photo whilst trying to find it. I actually left the camera outside and went inside; at some point, the tripod moved. Maybe a gust of wind? At any rate, the wiggle is visible.

But the comet isn't.

A Sunset

 

The interesting weather we've had most of the summer has given us amazing sunsets. The sunrises have been glorious, too, but we have trees in the backyard, and I get better shots of the sunsets.

Today is simply overcast with a breeze, as we await the remanants of Ian, the hurricane that devastated Ft. Myers and other parts of Florida.

Jupiter

If you look closely in the last two pictures, you can see little dots that are moons of Jupiter. I don't have the equipment to get a better photo, although I could see them fairly clearly through the digital enhancement in the camera.

A Rainbow!

This morning, my happiness came early when we had a shower and then sun - followed by a long (though not bright) rainbow.

It is hard to have a bad morning with a rainbow outside, no matter how dim it may be.

I am also happy because my husband is out on the tractor mowing hay. He's recovered from his hip surgery and eager to get back to work on the farm. I have asked him to call me every so often to be assure me that he is ok, but he seems to be happily ensconced on his farm tractor and having no issues.

My worries are for naught, it would appear.

Sky of Fire

After a storm late in the evening, I glanced at the sky's reflection in the back door. It looked like the mountain was on fire.

Purple Haze

 

Tau Herculids Bust

Last night there was supposedly a great meteor shower, with a peak time at 1 a.m. The astronomy folks were calling it the Herculids, and it was visible near the Big Dipper.

The reason for the shower was a broken comet, SW3. The comet fell apart in 1995 and the debris from it was supposed to be visible. Or so they hoped.

I set an alarm for 12:50 a.m. and took my camera outside. I aimed it at the Big Dipper. I got excited when I counted eight meteor streaks in a few minutes, although they seemed to be outside of the camera's eye.

It's nice outside at night, though the air was a big soupy. I wondered if there was enough haze to keep me from seeing the sky looking like it was falling to earth. That's what I was hoping for, a great show.

And I saw and heard a great show - Mother Nature at her finest hour. The trees around me danced with fireflies, each one apparently dazzling itself with its green light. Fairies flirting about the trees, I thought. The peepers at the neighbor's pond were croaking mightily, too. The air smelled of sweet drying grass from where my husband cut the hayfield yesterday, and something else I couldn't identify. Pollen?

In my peripheral vision, I watched the fairies dance to the froggies croak while I searched the sky for a heavenly display of fireworks.

By the time I came inside, I'd seen a total of 14 meteor streaks.

None of them came out on the camera.

The fireflies did, though.

The green streaks may be meteors, but I'm fairly sure they're fireflies, especially that big fat one at the top.

This is not one of my better star trail photos, either. It looks like I shook the camera at some point, since the lines are a little shaky. I've lightened the picture in effort to see everything the camera captured.

It was a disappointing photo shoot, and not the "sky falling" event I was hoping for, but something a little different.

Everyone should take the time to look at the night sky once in a while.

A Cold Front Sunrise

We had severe storms and rain yesterday, with a cold front moving through today with high winds.

It brought a great sunrise, though, as that ol' big yellow ball peeked through the clouds and turned the mountain tops pink. What could I do but grab my camera and go stand out in the wind and cold in my robe and shoot a few photos?

Pink mountain tops. The camera didn't quite do the site justice.

It was an exquisite site, really, to watch the light change.

The light turned quite red as the sunlight moved from the mountains towards me. The bird just in the middle of the shot was also glimmering in the light, but I could not catch a decent photo of it.

It hit the tree tops.

And then it made a broader swath.

Finally, it reached my yard, highlighting this tree.

And it hit the forsythia bushes to the side. This again doesn't do the sight justice.