Posts Tagged ‘theme:heavens’

Things rarely get me unreservedly excited in my ripe old age. I’m thinking excited in terms of the way I felt about birthday presents when about ten. When I could, I’d stack them in order and slowly open each one and try to stretch out the event as long as possible, coaxing open paper and laboriously untying ribbons. The kind of excitement that actually makes me slow down instead of speeding up, because it’s just that good that I don’t want it to end.

We are building an Orrery, a brass-and-gears wonder of a mechanical thing (and heavy!) that models the planets in the solar system. I can’t stand how much fun I’m having with this. Even cutting the pieces out of their wretched blister pack and setting them out on the table (set screws, gears, axles, planets) is bliss.

It’s attention-grabbing and serenely beautiful. Last week the early waxing slice of a young moon cradled a softly glowing, faint disk of the future full moon. I noticed it on my walk home and David burst into my library a quarter hour or so later, insisting that I should “really look at this.”

I was running late to a book club meeting, so I left David with my camera and exhortations to photograph the thing, which he did, admirably.

We know that the brightness of the moon comes from reflected sunlight, and it’s fairly well known that earthshine—sunlight reflected from the earth—can sometimes cause the night side of the moon to be faintly lit.

It had been my hope to merge my current site theme (The Heavens) with a winter weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. The high desert resort community usually has cold, clear weather at this time of year, and is far away from significant light pollution. That is, the stars can be heavenly, and I have in the past dabbled with entry-level astrophotography there with somewhat acceptable results.

I wanted to write for you about taking photos of stars. Alas, lingering between me and said celestial objects was a stubborn and weepy slab of clouds and mist that did not lift for the entire four days I was out there.

After plan B failed, too, I just had to make something up. Enjoy this latest post in my “heavens” theme series.

At first, it doesn’t seem that September 3, 1859, was out of the ordinary in the northern United States. The New York Times’ “News of the Day” lists quotidian happenings: that the “depredations of the Apache Indians” in Arizona Territory have become “almost uncurable” [sic]; that the city’s churches, closed for the summer, were starting to reopen slowly; that an unfortunate situation with a boiler at a downtown machine shop had left one dead and several flung about.

Between paragraphs about the apprehension of a “mean rascal” who had been fleecing young maidens and a recap of the current attitudes of commodity markets (cotton, molasses, crude turpentine, lime: flat; dry cod-fish, hops and hides: an uptick in demand) was this mention:

“There was another brilliant display of auroral light last night.”

This beautiful photograph of an aurora was taken by ovaratli.

Right now on Lyza.com, I’m exploring the heavens. In the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing posts that delve into celestial topics.

You might try this post about the mysterious and massive electromagnetic storm of 1859.

Here’s one about Messier objects that grew out of my (weather-caused) dual failure to execute on astrophotography or reach the Pine Mountain Observatory after a thankless snow-hike.

See all heavens-related posts