Eclipse Party 2024

 We had an eclipse party with 9 of us! We went to the cemetery to "visit" Marianne's parents who were nice quiet hosts.

Some of the kids are Girl Scouts, so they were doing science things in order to get a badge. For one thing, the temperature dropped 10 degrees at the totality. We had 2 minutes, 49 seconds where we were.

I took a picture every five minutes, but I won't overwhelm you with that many. But, a few... This is the totality.

I sort of got the "diamond ring," but it's not focused well. This is a good place to say that I know these aren't like professional pics, but they are mine. I was there.

Here are a few as it was leaving.

It got dusky, but not really dark. This was the horizon. We could see Jupiter? briefly.

One of the things the kids did was use a colander to project the cresent shapes on a piece of white board.

Then everyone came to Marianne's for dinner. Long day. Very fun. I'm glad I came.

See The Non-Event

Gumball Sun

 
The sky is hazy today... they tell us it's due to fires in Canada.

What that meant for my morning was that I could take a picture of a perfectly round sun gumball with the sun high in the sky.



In other news: I wrote in the morning, did a lot of stuff for our Books Alive! event (2 weeks away), mowed the other half of the yard and did a tiny, tiny bit on the trailer including making a list of the things I need to get before my next effort to accomplish much. Hoping to do some accounting this evening.

	See Ring Around the Moon
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Sun Doggies and Other Canines

 
Was getting ready to take a quick walk this afternoon, and... talk about timing! Look what was waiting for me.

Sun dog to the left of the sun. Way over there... 22 degrees away, to be exact.



Sun dog to the right of the sun.



Here's the left one closer. This is what I saw first.



The right one was more of a smudge of color through that hole in the cloud.



On the way around my loop I found another doggie track. The fox? Not sure. The tracks are not outlandishly large for fox, but perhaps a tiny bit. The were very straight, and foxes tend to be a bit more slanted. But I haven't seen any stray dogs around, and the fox could be very sure of himself back there.



Remember the winter I showed you tracks all the time? Must have been a great year with the snow just right for tracks... there hasn't been one like it since then.

In other news: I picked up a free lance job that is very worth the money (which I sure need right now), but they want a nearly impossible turnaround time. At least that means it will be over with soon! I picked up the final cover art for The Secret Cellar, and got it scanned. I met with the guy who is handing off being in charge of the Writers' Rendezvous to me for this year. I delivered books to the bookstore. Then I worked on the Rendezvous, and started working on the final cover for SC. We'll see if any actual writing happens yet today.

	See My First Sun Dog
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Ring Around the Moon

 
Last night, I saw my first complete moon halo. I'm quite sure all I'd ever seen before was that bright fuzzy circle that surrounds the moon but is in close.

This was the best picture I could manage since I am not adept at the manual settings on the camera. But, if you look out away from the moon you can see a much larger pale circle and the sky appears darker between it and the moon. The circle is more than half the width of the picture- got it?



These halos are always 22 degrees from the moon (or the sun). Bright spots 90 degrees apart on the circle are called moon dogs. Because moonlight is not as bright as sunlight the rings appear colorless, but they are essentially rainbows. Sometimes you can detect faint red color on the inside and blue on the outside. I couldn't see that last night.

They also occur in the daytime, and the bright spots will have rainbow colors. Then it's called a sun dog. But you can see the full circles around the sun as well. I've never seen that, but a quick internet search will bring up some fantastic pictures.

They form when there are high cirrus clouds full of ice crystals. The light is refracted forming the ring. The sky always appears a deeper color inside the ring. It's often a signal of storms. That wasn't true of this one- we are continuing the nice weather for the present time.

I read that the week of Hurricane Sandy there were moon halos seen all over the country.

In this version of the picture, I messed with the contrast so you can really see the dark circle. You can also tell that the inner edge of the ring is sharp while the outer edge is fuzzy.



Very cool stuff. I love seeing new things. Now I need a sun halo and moon dogs to complete the set!

In other news: Work yesterday/last night was long and difficult. Today I'm doing a little editing, but not much.

	See Sun Dog
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Harvest Moon

 
Technically, the harvest moon isn't full till 2:41 pm tomorrow. Too bad. I could see it tonight. One must take pictures when things are actually visible.



Today was a high energy day. I like those! That said, there's not much that's photo worthy. Of course it was a work day. Then I did some things on the trailer in the afternoon involving sanding and fiberglass. But I'll show pictures when at least one thing is actually finished. Then I made 7 more quarts of grape juice. Honestly, how many times do you want to see pictures of quart jars with grapes floating in them? They all look pretty much the same.

But then the moon came up. I know you've seen it before, too. But I'm hoping you might be willing to see it again. These pictures aren't quite as good as the one from two years ago, but not too shabby.



Speaking of harvest... I still have more grapes. I'm exploring other ideas. I don't eat hardly any jelly/jam. Don't even bother with those suggestions. I LOVE Concord grapes, but once you move away from juice and jelly, you pretty much have to take out the seeds. That moves me right into the less inspired column. Yet, I may make one recipe that requires that step. Stay tuned.

	See Post Blue Moon
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I'll Take a Slice of That Please!

 
Coming home from work this morning there was one slice of a feature that was so compelling I stopped at a place I could see it better. I had to lie down in the wet grass to get a picture with no wires across the face. And the focus isn't great.



I took more photos when I got home, with a tripod, but by then the moon was high enough that the orange color was about gone. It only takes five minutes to make all the difference!



By the way, if you want to remember which "direction" the moon phase is headed, try "right rising, left leaving." This means when the crescent is on the right side the moon is waxing (heading toward full). When the crescent is on the left, like this one, the moon is waning (heading toward new or dark).

And, it ended up that I did take a picture yesterday, after I did the blog post game. The sunset was peaceful in pastels. Nothing gaudy, but beautiful in its own way.



In other news, little Steve turned 43 today. I called him. He's celebrating by having the flu, poor guy! But we did have a nice talk.

	See My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon for a waxing crescent moon See My Little Squirt is 39
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The Non-Event of the Day

 
I was really torn between two options today. I like science and astronomical events, but I hate jumping on the bandwagon with 30 million other people.

As it turned out, today's partial solar eclipse at my house was no great shakes.



It didn't even get very dark.



I have to say that the partial eclipse in 1994 was a much bigger deal to me. For one thing, there just wasn't very much hype. This was before the internet was a huge thing. I was at grad school, and I knew there was going to be a partial eclipse, but I didn't pay a lot of attention because I expected it to be pretty much like today turned out to be.

Image from NASA, public domain

However, it just so happened that I didn't have classes that day and I took myself for a walk in the woods. That turned out to be momentarily spooky, because I did forget the eclipse was going to happen. It started to get quite dark under the trees- like late dusk. All the rustling of animals ceased and the birds stopped singing. It took me a minute to remember there was going to be a partial eclipse. Just for a bit I think I felt like ancient peoples must have felt before eclipses could be predicted. There happened to be a bench near where I was. I sat down and contemplated the workings of the solar system and the Creator.

That was much more of an event for me than today. Maybe I'll still be around for the next one on April 8, 2024. Actually, that would be sort of numerically significant. I was supposed to be born on April 8, didn't show up till the 24th. And I'll be 24 years (and those extra days) shy of 100.

My big news of the day is that I finished another chapter in Dead Mule Swamp Druggist.

	See Blood Moon
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Season of Thankfulness - Natural Beauty

 
If you visit this blog much you have to know that I'm always thankful for and delighted by the natural beauty of the world around us.

Here's the super moon last night at rising. I think it was reflecting some of the light of the sunset from the west.



Tonight, when it's truly full, there were low clouds and I had to wait till it was higher in the sky to get a picture.



Since I believe all this order and beauty did not happen by mere chance, I also have Someone to actually thank.

The super moon is great, but the best picture I ever took of the moon is at the link below.

	See Post Blue Moon
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My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon

 
Lovely moon on my way to work Friday night. With the naked eye those craters really looked like the classic facial features.


My grandmother had (probably) thousands of songs available at a moment's notice. I was sung to sleep with many many different tunes. Here's one (an old vaudeville ditty):

My sweetheart’s the man in the moon.
I’m going to marry him soon.
‘Twould fill me with bliss just to give him one kiss,
But I know that a dozen I never would miss.
I’ll go up in a great big balloon
And see my sweetheart in the moon.
Then behind some dark cloud where no one is allowed
I’ll make love to the man in the moon.

It's easy to see how drawings like this came to be so popular.


I'm hoping for clear skies the night of the super moon, November 14.

	See ...and the Moon in the Evening
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Moon and More

 
Long day. Waaaaay too much shopping, including a shiny new phone. That might sound like a positive thing, but it's just a bunch of new stuff to figure out and I don't find it all that fascinating to struggle to use a piece of technology that I don't even like. Anyway.

The best thing about today was getting another chapter done in Dead Mule Swamp Druggist. I blogged about that at Joan of Shark

But I haven't had a chance to show you the ring around the moon from Saturday night. The rainbow appearance doesn't show well in the photo, but the colors were very clear in reality. It's called a halo and is created when there are ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.



Tonight, Jupiter is happily frolicking with the moon.

	See Sunrise Bedtime
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