Jupiter and Venus near kiss

 

Yes, I know it’s a terrible photo. Though I’d heard about this conjunction of Jupiter and Venus sometime last week, the reality of it did not penetrate my Monday morning fog. So when Skye and I exited the dark, pre-dawn forest and came into the open, I was completely unprepared for the sight in front of me. All I had with me was the camera in my phone, a very poor substitute for a good camera and tripod. Perhaps if it hadn’t been a Monday morning I’d have been better prepared.

The two planets looked nearly close enough to kiss, and seeing the two together was enough to make me gasp at how beautiful they were. The horizon was already beginning to pale, but at 5:40 the two were still brilliant, bright and sharp. A prettier sight in the heavens I have only rarely seen.

I think this morning was the closest approach, but the two will stay pretty close for several more days. If you have a clear morning, don’t miss it.

Green and gray

It’s warm and overcast today, threatening rain but I’d be hard put to report more than 6-8 drops on anything so far. For a while I thought I’d be forced into a rain jacket on my morning walk with Baby Dog.  I say forced because it was warm enough this morning that even the backpacking shell I use as a rain jacket made me as though I was in a sauna.  I decided that I was better off getting wet than wearing even that feather-weight thing, but I didn’t get wet after all.

Still, rain is falling all around my area but somehow missing Roundtop.  Instead, the humidity is cloying. Rain would likely reduce the humidity.  For August, the landscape around me looks remarkably green. Usually by this time of the year, the grass is withering and the annual wild plants are looking pretty ragged.  This year enough rain has already fallen that the fields and woods retain that deep green shade of midsummer.  If not for the sudden lack of swallows and the shortening length of the days, I would guess it was July.

On clear evenings, now that darkness comes early, Baby Dog and I have been heading up into one of Roundtop’s parking lots to view the night sky.  I am an early riser and so head early to bed as well, and in the prime of summer, by the time the sky is dark enough for good star viewing, I am yawning and ready for bed.  Now, darkness comes early enough that I can enjoy the star viewing and be warm at the same time. Winter brings me plenty of opportunities for star viewing, but the early darkness also brings falling temperatures that can get uncomfortable quickly.  Now and for the next few months, I have both early darkness and balmy temperatures and that makes a good combination for star viewing.

Sometimes I take my spotting scope or binoculars, but mostly we just stand and look.  I never see too much that’s very exciting—a brief flash of a meteor is about as exciting as it gets.  Instead, I watch planes pass, look for the Milky Way on the clearest nights, look for a planet or two, watch the moon rise or set and just generally enjoy the quiet and sky above me. It’s always a beautiful show.

Orion in the Morning

“You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me.”
--Robert Frost, Starsplitter

Yesterday as I walked Dog in pre-dawn hours of morning, I looked at the stars overhead and was surprised to see the constellation Orion, its stars only just starting to fade into the light of dawn.

Since I think of Orion as a winter constellation, when it rises in the east shortly after dark, I’d forgotten that Orion was visible now in the pre-dawn hours. At this point in the dark of early morning, Orion is full overhead, the great and mighty hunter of myth, dominating the entire sky. For me, seeing the great hunter again was like the sudden and unexpected reappearance of an old friend who I wasn’t expecting for another month or so.

The other constellations are all dwarfed by Orion’s size, and some of them require a lot of imagination to tease the picture they are supposed to represent from the stars that make them up. Not so with Orion, whose stars create the shape of a man with a belt that even a child can see.

I even like the names of the stars that make up Orion--the belt stars of Mintaka, Anilam and Alnitak, the head star of Meissa, Rigel and Bellatrix, the star Saiph. I don’t know how this last is pronounced, but I always think of it as “safe.” To me, gazing into the dark, starry heavens on a silent winter night, seeing Orion high overhead, somehow always makes me feel that I am safe. Is it even possible to gaze into the night sky, stars crystalline overhead, and feel anything but tranquil?

At this point in the year, the lines from Frost’s poem about Orion are a bit premature, but they are so beautiful I couldn’t resist. When Orion rises in the east in another month, he will do so lying on his side, and Frost’s allusion to the giant throwing a leg over the fence will be more apt. I will be out looking for Orion then, too, welcoming the giant into winter’s pasture.