If NASA really knew about aliens, wouldn’t publicizing it be the best way to solve their chronic budget problems?
Category: Space
Night Sky
There’s something to be said for a night sky with so many stars that Sirius doesn’t stand out quite so much.
No Comet For You!
I had hoped that the darker skies near San Simeon on the central California coast would have made it easier to spot Comet Lulin, but no such luck. First the clouds rolled in around sunset. I checked around 9:45 and they’d cleared enough to see very clearly out toward the ocean, but the lights of town were directly below Leo, so I drove down the highway a few miles to a scenic viewpoint with a wide parking area, stopped the car, and tried not to let passing traffic ruin my dark adaptation.
Once again, no luck spotting the comet (though I’ve at least determined that the bright spot next to Saturn was just a star), but an excellent view of the stars. And I spotted 4 or 5 meteors during the ~30 minutes I was out there, all in the direction of Orion and Canis Major. (One of them, maddeningly, flashed by just moments before one of my photos started.)
I did manage to catch an airplane as it transited in front of Canis Major and Orion, shown in this photo. (I should have called it a UFO.) And the view was far better than any night sky in suburbia, so the side trip was absolutely worth it!
Leo, Saturn… and Comet Lulin?
I figured I’d try spotting Comet Lulin from my back yard. I found Leo and Saturn easily enough, but just couldn’t see anything that looked like a comet. It should be a little to the right of Saturn, going by Sky & Telescope’s chart.
Too much light pollution, I guess. And unlike the Bad Astronomer, I didn’t have any binoculars to try a closer look.
On the plus side, I did spot a meteor out of the corner of my eye, off to the left of this field.
Figuring the camera might pick up something I missed, I took a few long exposure shots, running 15 seconds with the equivalent of ISO 1600. There’s a dot next to Saturn, but I’m not sure if it’s the comet or a star.
I’ll have to try again in San Simeon. Light should be much less of a problem, though clouds might be an issue.
Waitaminute
Listening to “Into the West” (end credits song from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). Lyric, “Across the sea a pale moon rises.”
It’s all about crossing the sea into the west to go to elf heaven. Presumably the speaker is standing at the Grey Havens, waiting for the ships to arrive and carry her off to the Undying Lands, looking across the sea…to the west.
So since when does the moon rise in the west?
Admittedly, it’s a fantasy setting, but Middle Earth is set up to be a mythical past for the real world, so I’m fairly certain the sun and moon still rise in the east…
Stellar Triangle
I managed to get a few shots of the near-conjunction of the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus tonight before they sank into the haze.
The first two shots were taken at twilight (well, dusk, really), around 5:05–5:10 PM PST, while the third was taken at 5:30, after night had fallen.
Jupiter and Venus
This is actually from a couple of nights ago, but the view as I left the office tonight was about the same (though the lights were just starting to turn on in this picture).
It’s really odd to walk out of the building into a lot that’s normally lighted (even when I head in to do emergency server maintenance at midnight) and see it completely dark.
Well, not completely dark. There was a little light leaking from windows behind me, and streetlights filtering through trees, and what I could see of the sign on the building across the street. Nothing compared to some of the camping trips I’ve been on, or the drive through Ka‘u at night. But for a suburban office building, it was a change.
Edit: Oops! For some reason I’ve been convinced that this was Saturn, but it’s actually Jupiter.