Losing Leonids

On the whole, I have lousy luck with meteor showers. 

Last week, I hauled myself out of bed, and after dressing in the living room, went to the roof some time after 5:30 am, to see if I could glimpse some Leonid meteors.

The first thing I saw when I stepped over the high sill leading to the narrow fenced in walk leading to the other stairs was Orion the Hunter.

I haven't seen him in a couple of years, mostly due to eyesight problems and the fact that he generally hangs out in the southern portion of the winter sky at night, while our apartment faces a hill to the north.

It was a crystal-clear pre-dawn sky, which is why I was there, and it was startling to see that mythical rapist, so stark against the black sky.  There was a peach-coloured planet above his left shoulder, and a brilliant star twinkling near the southern horizon to his right.  A very bright, moonlight-casting quarter moon was in the east, and I moved into the shadow of the building, noting a couple of lit windows in the facing buildings.  Neighbours needing to rise early -- or bed late.

Looking up, I saw no meteors, but two "stars"moving slowly but steadily -- one headed north, the other south.  They seemed to pass each other not quite directly over my head.  Some minutes later, another southbound dot, too high and compact to be airplanes.  Satellites?

I stood, leaning against the wall, craning my neck for about twenty minutes.  No meteors, even with Leo in the south.  The city of Victoria causes a fair bit of light pollution -- although I remember seeing stars clearly when I was a teenager.

I didn't feel cold until I descended the stairs, having eschewed the elevator, which had been making strange noises. I didn't care to be trapped at 6 am.

Shivering belatedly, I found a web site that gives you a map of the night sky at any given time, in any given city.  The screen shot above is Victoria's sky looking southwest, at the very date and hour that I was gazing from the roof of our building. The peach planet was Mars.  The brilliant star was Sirius.  Well, of course Orion would be out with his dogs, like a number of my neighbours below, just before daybreak.

The bringer of jollity?

I kept dozing off on the couch after a mildy muggy but occupied day. I dragged myself up, removed my shoes, and thought glumly of the obstacles between my bed and me.

Then I remembered.  Jupiter is in opposition tonight, the closest to the earth it's been since 1963.  A lot of people still alive then; a lot of people not yet born.

I put my shoes back on and headed for the roof.

 

Not what I saw

Jupiter was unmistakeable, and not just because it was a moonless night. Shining like a brilliant star, it hung in the east. 

I closed one eye, and it disappeared. (I'm scheduled for eye surgery in a month.)  Through my good eye, I fancied I could see a tiny pinprick of brilliant light near Jupiter's left shoulder. A distant star? One of Jupiter's moons? Probably my imagination. 

 Back down to our suite, where the Resident Fan Boy now couldn't resist going up to look for himself. 

It will be a little more than a century until Jupiter comes this close again.

I hope someone will be here to see it.

Here we are, extending into shooting stars

We were escorting Demeter home as the light faded, when I happened to glance over my left shoulder. 

Fighting free of the trees, I saw a peach-coloured moon, not quite ripe. It won't be full until Sunday, when it will be a Sturgeon Moon as well as a Blue Moon -- not because of being the second full moon of the month (it isn't), but because it's the third of four full moons within one season. The last one will be the Harvest Moon, which will rise just before the equinox brings the summer to a close. 

We saw Demeter safely into her apartment, then hurried home to see if younger daughter wished to join us on the roof for another look. 

We took the elevator to the fifth floor, and stepped out. 

The moon was largely hidden behind some treetops, and had shed much of its peachy glow. However, shining in scarlet between the trees, I saw Mars rising in the east, and the Resident Fan Boy spotted Venus, in her guise as the Evening Star, brilliant on the western horizon. 

I glanced up, and directly above was the first actual star of the night. I made a wish. 

I don't know how I missed this song in 2012. It was probably because I was otherwise occupied. Spotify has brought it to my attention. I rather love it.

Misalignment

The Resident Fan Boy and I ventured out on to the roof between laundry room visits, and there, dangling above the western horizon, just clear of wispy bands of clouds, was Jupiter, and the pin-prick of Saturn hanging to his upper right.  It wasn't the climax of the conjunction, but it wasn't bad!

As the RFB and I returned to our apartment, he muttered: "A conjunction, a comet, and Mars - what's going on?"

"'S'plains a lot," I replied.

We had no idea.

Settling into the couch, I checked my messages and found an e-mail from our sociable neighbours upstairs.  They had been out for their morning walk, when a slippery patch left over from Monday's sloppy precipitation caught the wife off-guard, and they spent the bulk of yesterday in emergency.  Multiple fractures to both wrists.  Surgery in the new year.

This morning, elder daughter texted from South Wimbledon.  Her COVID app informed her that she had been in contact with someone with the virus.   (Hardly difficult in London at this moment.)  She's now required to self-isolate for five days.  Her plans to spend Christmas with her second cousins in Greenwich are out the window -- probably not a bad thing, considering Tier Four.  A comfort is that one of her flatmates and her husband had to abandon their plans for a holiday hotel stay, due to the new restrictions, so at least elder daughter will not be alone.

These darn things usually come in threes,  don't they?  Should I stop the star-gazing?

Snow glob

It's the shortest day of this benighted year.

There's a Great Conjunction tonight, not seen since the 13th century (the one in the 17th century was apparently not visible at night), so, of course, we've been socked in by a relentless grey sky pelting us with heavy rain and fat mashed-potato gobbets of snow.  

The ground was already saturated when the snow plummeted, and so the white stuff is not getting much of a purchase on the soggy ground.  It has managed to accumulate not far north of us; the buses in and out of the Saanich Peninsula have been cancelled, as have several sailings of the ferries.  

A friend of Double Leo Sister, whose only crime was venturing from Parksville for a medical appointment, and dropping off Demeter's gift, has spent the better part of the day trapped on the Malahat Highway, a road that follows the south-east coast of Vancouver Island through the Cowichan Valley, and by some heart-stopping chasms, and. if blocked by snow or the resulting accidents, is practically inescapable.

I limited my forays to miserable short slogs, and spent the morning taking advantage of the Resident Fan Boy's ill-advised trip to a shopping mall.  I slipped my treasure trove of presents into bags, and emptied the contents of the "rehearsed" Christmas stockings into old purses, suitable for hiding until Christmas Eve.  

Last week, I made a careful inventory of the RFB's collection of Doctor Who novels, and slipped into Russell's Books for four more to fill out his stocking.  I discovered a few days later, that the RFB, having run out of space in his designated and sacred Doctor Who bookshelf, has been adding his novels to a lower shelf in the dining room.  I checked today to see which books I'd duplicated.  All four, dammit.  Now I've got to sneak into Russell's with only three shopping days left - something I'd hoped to avoid.  (I'll stick the four duplicates into one of the many "little libraries" in my neighbourhood -- perhaps the one on my old street.)

On a brighter note, yesterday, I prepared the Christmas tourtière for freezing, so I rewarded myself this morning with an account at the Globe Theatre, in order to live-stream (Snow) Globe, this year's version of the annual Christmas play for children at the famous venue for Shakespeare's plays -- closed for business, along with all of London's theatres, by this new plague.

It's snippets of Shakespeare, snatches of modern Christmas songs, and written and performed by Sandi Toksvig, and contains wry wit, in-jokes, and much of the longing for contact that has beset rather more of us than usual this year.  I enjoyed it very much.

I'll go to the roof tonight.  The forecast is for clearing skies.

There goes Jupiter; here comes Mars

One thing I finally managed to do after years of just missing, was attending a bit of the "B-film Festival" at the Cameron Bandshell this past summer. The festival originally showed honest-to-gawd B films, but has evidently found that family-friendly classics and action films draw the crowds, so I settled into my hard bench to watch Some Like It Hot.

This was a good choice because I've seen it many times before, so could slip away in time to catch a bus home, because downtown Victoria is a wee bit creepy on a Saturday night, and I was on my own while the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter visited elder daughter in Ottawa for Chamberfest.

It was a clear night which meant it got cold very quickly, and I caught a glimpse of a shooting star spitting to the south, and a bird of prey circling uncomfortably close to the blue heron nests next to the clearing.

At about 10:25, just before Tony Curtis and Marilyn Munroe got into some heavy necking, I crept from my seat and felt my way nervously around the dark duck ponds, rather wishing I had the nerve to stop and star-gaze. Good thing I didn't because my bus came five minutes early and fifteen minutes later, I found myself crossing a nearly deserted Yates Street, and there was Mars, hanging red and clear above the schoolyard.

As I turned south, Jupiter shone silver to my left.

I trotted home to the apartment I'd carefully lit before leaving, and missed my family, while drinking in my solitude wistfully.

It wasn't until the morning that I discovered the mosquito bites. They were clear and red too.

To boldly go...

You may want to have this playing while you view the following:Earth? Earth and uh, Mars? Planets collide in a galaxy far, far away? (Or in some overwrought Russell T Davies Doctor Who finale? Cheap shot, I know!) Not planets then...Dinosaur eggs?Psychedelic chickens? O-o-ohhh... Easter Eggs!These are really simple. (If they weren't, we wouldn't be doing them!) A tablespoon each of food colouring, vinegar and (this is important!) vegetable oil into a mug or other container big enough to immerse one egg. Fill the rest of the mug with cold water. (Not all the way or it will slop over when you dip the egg.) Make sure you have aprons or old clothes and proper covering for your work surface (preferably plastic). Now grip the egg gently with some tongs in one hand, and stir one of the mugs with the other. Take out the spoon and quick, while the dye is swirling, briefly dip the egg in. Take it out, pat it dry with a paper cloth or old rag, then repeat with another colour or even the same colour for more intensity. Pat your finished eggs dry, set them aside and mop up.

Happy Easter!