Creation Photos Around the World

That might be why I didn’t see Mars tonight.

A few nights ago when it was clear, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, and Uranus were all out (in order of diminishing brightness), but my aging eyes can no longer see Uranus except on really good nights far away from human light sources. I also caught the wonderful Green Flash through a slim gap between the offshore cloud layer and the horizon, absolutely gorgeous as it reflected off the cloud layer for the most brilliant occurrence of it I’ve ever witnessed.

2 Likes

I missed Mars going behind the moon, but it was clear and I saw it come out. It was not all that impressive, but had to be pretty bright to see it beside the full Moon. Mars is at its closest in its orbit these days, so pretty bright.

2 Likes

I managed to identify Mars when I looked really closely: The moon had three halos around it tonight, a close pale whitish one, a bigger and brilliant yellow and orange one, and the really broad 22° halo. Mars was hiding just on the outer fringe of the second halo (which I estimated at being about 4°).

I’ve seen halos around the moon before, but never three at once.

2 Likes

Pretty cool–I didn’t even know what that was. I had to look it up! Thanks

1 Like

Eastern bluebirds


picking a little chili

5 Likes

This is similar to what I saw, except the green was more like two gems one on top of the other and more like a shamrock green–

THis is the more common sight–

IMG_6430_green_flash-2985578789

I’ve seen one like this, too, where the green seems to float above the horizon–

GreenFlashW-2811250342

It used to be hard to catch it on camera, but the development of rapid-fire shutter openings to catch successive images made it a lot easier. I got one on film once but have yet to own a digital camera good enough to make it worth the effort.

6 Likes

Snowing in south Alabama now. First time since 2014 and not sure how long before that. Quite rare.




I brought all of my cats outside one at a time. But I did not want them to flee and so kept my hand on them. Was only out there for about 2 minutes each. They all wanted to come back in because they seemed confused about the snow falling.

I also noticed that the houses like mine who leaves leaves (homographic) on the ground had lots of snow but the yards that are lawns with green grasses the snow is melting away instantly. Don’t even look like snow is on them.

6 Likes

We had a few flurries here today. We got more the week before last:


Last time for us was 2021. 10 years ago, once to three times per year was normal for snow sticking. Now it’s only once every couple years. The temperatures here today were cold enough to actually closely match home for my friend/classmate from Edmonton.

4 Likes

In spite of being cold, I have been able to get the camera out a bit at night with my tracking mount:

The Pleiades (Messier 45) processed from a 77 minute stack:

And the Orion Nebula (Messier 42 and 43), Running Man Nebula (Sharpless 2-279), and iota Orionis from a 21 minute stack:

7 Likes

This reminds me of being in Astronomy 102 when we were viewing with the good old human eyeball and the professor said “You can count seven stars”, and I cut in, “Um, I see eleven”.
I can’t even make out seven any more on most nights.

2 Likes

Ten thousand :heart: :heavy_heart_exclamation:

2 Likes

I can see 5 on nights with a lot of haze, 7 on clear nights, and maybe 9 on exceptional ones, but it’s so consistently humid and light-polluted here that that last one almost never happens.

2 Likes







It continued to snow a ridiculous amount for where I live. I was paranoid my roof was going to get damaged. A person near me had an old weak roof and the part above her living area collapsed. Took me just shy of five hours of cleaning my roof. It was about 10 inches thick. Got finished just before 9pm. Feel quite sick from it. It was 19°f but had winds at 15mph and said real feel was 11°f. Kind of beautiful. I overall hate it.

6 Likes

I am lucky to see a smudge in my peripheral vision. I did go out last night to see Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. I take it on faith that Neptune and Uranus were there as well. Of course, it is deceptive to say they are lined up like some of the illustrations say on social media when they are spread across the sky.

2 Likes

Are those stars shining more brightly because they are closer to earth? So beautiful!!!

1 Like

Some of them. A lot of the stars are all a single cluster. The more red ones, and most of the really faint ones and ones off towards the edges are background stars behind the Pleiades. The really bright ones are just larger, brighter stars than the other relatively white ones near the center (the brighter ones are also hotter, and thus bluer).

The brightest one (Alcyone) is about 2030 times as bright as the sun. The faint end of the ones that are naked-eye visible are 100-400 solar luminosities (like the uppermost of the brighter ones)

2 Likes

Those are brutal temps for your area, and realistically cold here. Itks good you had some peoper clothes for it.

Since you aren’t sure about the strength of your roof, you did the right thing. At those temps though, the snow was probably fairly fluffy and light.

I hope you feel better now. The cold by itself won’t make you sick, but frostbite is real. And the cold can make everything that aches ache more.

3 Likes

My feet are in sheer pain right now from my afternoon spent doing dune-building work at the beach – the air temperature hit 54° F and with nearly no wind but intense sunshine it felt warmer, but the ground never really warmed up and my boots have no insulation, so my feet were effectively in an ice bath all afternoon. I’ve been shuffling rather than walking; it’s that bad!

I need to remember tomorrow to get some insulated inserts for those boots!

2 Likes

Ugh. Here I would say to layer wool socks and even roomy slipper socks, but you probably have never needed to buy them before, either.
Sorry about the pain.

3 Likes

I haven’t needed wool socks since my last winter in the Midwest. I’ll bet I’ve still got some somewhere in storage.

1 Like