Wayback on June 5, 2012, I observed the last to occur transit of Venus, an astronomical event where Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun. It happened on a Tuesday, but not until after five, so I was already home from work. I had time to setup a telescope on the sidewalk and project the above image onto a piece of paper. Holding the paper in one hand, I snapped the photo with my other. Due of the planetary geometry this event was much easier to see than a total eclipse of the Moon. Because to the relative tilts of the orbits of Earth and Venus, these events occur in pairs, eight years apart, about once a century. Sometime later, we attended a U-City quilt show, where the pictured quilt was on display. It more dynamically captures this event than I was able to.
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in April 1990, was named by NASA in honor of astronomer Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953). Hubble determined that galaxies (very large groups of stars and associated matter) exist outside of and are receding from the Milky Way. His work demonstrated that the universe is expanding. The Hubble Space Telescope has taken hundreds of thousands of images of astronomical objects, including the four nebulae (interstellar clouds of gas and dust) and one galaxy shown on these stamps.
Eagle Nebula – NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the beauty of a dramatic region of star formation This stellar nursery, known as the Eagle Nebula, features pillars of dust and gas that act as cocoons for young stars.
Ring Nebula – The Hubble Space Telescope peered at the Ring Nebula, a barrel of gas cast off by a dying star similar to our sun. The barrel, formed over thousands of years at the end of the star’s life, appears as a ring
Lagoon Nebula – Hubble imaged an eerie cradle of star formation called the Lagoon Nebula. The giant clouds of dusty gas may have been shaped by high-speed interstellar winds created in the clouds by new stars.
Egg Nebula – Hubble provided this view of the last gasps of the sun-like star in the Egg Nebula. The intriguing “searchlight” beams are emerging from the dying star, hidden behind the dark central dust band.
Galaxy NGC 1316 – Hubble captured the aftermath of an ancient collision between two galaxies. The remains of the small galaxy appear as dark clumps against the glowing core of the large galaxy, known as NGC 1316.
When my father was a boy, he used to collect stamps. I remember finding his childhood stamp albums, one domestic and the other foreign. The foreign album I always found the most fascinating of the two. Each country had its own page(s). He collected stamps in the 1930s, so Germany’s stamps were all full of swastikas and because of its inflation at that time there were a lot of them. I guess it took a lot more of their stamps to mail a letter than most other countries did. My brother “inherited” those collections. This summer, while sifting through my dad’s stuff, I discovered that he had renewed his love of philately. Aided by the postal service’s desire for revenue by selling more stamps, he had collected quite a few commemorative sheets of stamps. These one-sheet collections are too pretty to use for postage, so I guess that I will just keep them.
Anne braved the heat and the dark and photographed the moon last night. It was the night of a triple-header, featuring a full moon, a super moon and a lunar eclipse, all at once. I appreciate her sharing her great photos with me for this blog. Now, I remember why I have a prurient interest in astronomy.
Last night was forecasted the storm of the century. Not a thunderstorm this time, but a geomagnetic storm. The northern lights were predicted. The news claimed that they would be visible all the way south down to Alabama, the land of cotton. We had clear skies, so I was pumped. Unfortunately, we also had a dinner party to attend. Getting out-of-town, out of the light well that is Saint Louis was not an option. Then I had an idea. I could fly the drone. Studying this possibility, I discovered that my drone had camera settings. Most importantly for night photography, its shutter speed could be set for long exposures. I began charging the aircraft and then headed off to the party.
The party was with some of our old Team Kaldis alum. It was great to see everyone again. Fewer and fewer of them are still biking, but it was great to recount and hear all of the old war stories from our glory days. Our stroll down memory lane was punctuated by an around the table recounting of how each couple first met and then how they started dating. It was a great time!
Returning home, I found my drone fully charged. Powering it up I took to the skies. I could not really see anything through my iPhone control panel, but I was still hopeful that a long exposure would show more. The running light on the drone made it easy to spot up in the night sky, but I could not determine its orientation. This made it difficult to fly and to keep it out of trees, but I managed. Later, checking the stills, I saw no aurora borealis, but I was rather pleased with the imagery of the ground. Some tweaking will be needed to get crisper shots in the future, but this whole new venue of night flying offers much opportunity. So, no northern lights. The heat island and its associated light well that is the city of Saint Louis not only protects us from tornadoes, but it also wards off geomagnetic storm too. But then there is always photoshop, to see the world as nature intended.
Last night, we searched for the new comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, the so-called devil’s comet. It is called this because it once had two horn shaped jets emanating from the front of its nucleus. Not that uncommon a feature with some comets. For some reason it is also called the Mother of Dragons comet, maybe because of the horns, but probably too much Game of Thrones going on. Anyway, we did not see it. It is faint and is only visible now right after sunset, not the best viewing conditions. There is also a nearly full moon, which does not help. We will try again tonight, before it disappears behind the sun. This sort of our Hailey’s comet. It last appeared in our birth year, seventy years ago and will not be back for another seventy years. Unfortunately, the fog is rolling in again.
Anne was awoken this morning by a ding on her phone coming from her Left coast sister, who is currently visiting her grandkids on the Right coast. Jay texted her Wordle score. Now, Anne has routinely done this herself in the past, when the shoe was on the other foot. She now wonders if she has ever awakened her sister by doing this. She would not be doing this on purpose, would she?
We lunched at Rio Grill in Carmel, Chris and my dad’s favorite restaurant. Being Sunday, they had a brunch going. Anne had a frittata and I had their Bennies. They both made for a nice change of pace from the usual fare there.
