Still down in the dumps, maybe farther than yesterday. This is so unlike me I don't know what to make of it. Read Kyell Gold's latest story posted on FA, which didn't help. It's not porn, which pleased me as I think he's a really fine writer when he talks about feelings, hopes and fears of his characters rather than describing every "unf" in graphic detail. But it ties into the stuff I'm already feeling down about, so it doesn't help with that.

The screeching, irrational fights over health care reform are no help either. I am absolutely appalled that so many Americans, who ought to be educated and rational, are willing to believe the total made up fictions being circulated about the bills in Congress.

Frankly, I think those bills are a disaster because they don't do nearly enough. They will fail to help even if they pass, which now seems unlikely since the profit sector has started breeding mass hysteria with lies and distortions.

Oh, and last night's "peak" in the meteor shower was a dud, at least here. Apparently counts have been rising across Asia today, and there should still be plenty to see tonight if you have a clear dark sky. I'll go look again in a few minutes.

Tags: astronomy, politics, writing
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: depressed

Finally managed to squeeze a week off into the calendar. Last week of August, and boy do I need it. What I really need is two solid weeks off, but every time I hint at that, there's a certain feeling of terror I see creep over some people. Not that our network needs constant tweaking. Other than changing backup tapes, I often go months without doing much of anything to it.

I'm in an unusually low mood tonight, inspired by the news of two long term relationships among my friends breaking up and dissolving. Both of them outlasted the average for straight marriages in this country, and I am utterly furious at those who keep denying legal recognition that would help stabilize things more. I'm also feeling pain over it because I know they feel hurt even though they are doing really well at covering it and smiling. And I know I couldn't do that. I'd totally lose it. I'll be 60 in just a few months, and I've spent nearly half my life with one person. I don't want that to change, I can't imagine that changing. It would destroy my world.

Enough of that. Don't miss the meteors tonight. For those of us in North America, the peak is supposed to come around 0800Z, which is 1 am in California, 2 am in the Rockies, 3 am in the Central zone, and 4 am on the East coast. Guy Ottwell's astronomical atlas says that a second peak should come at around 2000Z, which is after dusk on Wednesday for Asia and the most eastern part of Europe. Western Europe gets the short end of it this time, though there should still be good meteor viewing if you have clear skies just about any time tonight. Check spaceweather.com for more details and early photos of meteor trails. I plan to try to get up and look around 3 o'clock if I possibly can.

Tomorrow, the farrier, then I have to lead a committee meeting, then work the usual late shift. And Thursday the dogs and cats to the vet, an ordeal I've come to dread.

Tags: astronomy, pets, relationships, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: uncomfortable

I think when "Daylight Saving Time" ends we should call it "Darkness Saving Time" because that's what the effect is. I left work in pitch darkness, where a week ago the sun was still showing. It seems to me that we need later sunsets at this time of year much more than we need them in July.

According to spaceweather.com, Comet 17P/Holmes has grown a tail now, and then over the last day or so, the tail appears to have separated from the main body of the comet the way a chameleon's tail will pull off if you grab it unexpectedly.

I shall leave Argos to ponder his captivity for the night. I'm partway through the chapter but having trouble staying awake enough to write the rest. Perhaps in the morning it will flow more easily.

Tags: astronomy, writing
Mood: sleepy

In quotes because it isn't really exploding, as far as we know. Comet 17P/Holmes, a normally insignificant object so faint that you need a hefty telescope even to see it, suddenly blossomed last week from a 17th magnitude pinprick to a 2.5 magnitude noteworthy. Currently in the constellation Perseus, it is easily visible to the naked eye after sunset, as soon as the sky darkens, in the northeast. For photos and sky diagrams, check out Spaceweather.com. Print out the chart unless you are very familiar with the night sky and have a good eidetic memory for where to look. I thought I could get it by memory and failed, had to come back into the house and memorize the diagram more precisely. I was looking too far to the north.

Although descriptions keep saying that the hazy coma around the nucleus of the comet is visible to the naked eye, I did not find it so. I have above average night vision, but without the binoculars it just looks like a second magnitude star to me. Comparing to the star chart, you realize that there isn't supposed to be a star there, and it is so bright and obvious that it never could have been missed when the chart was made. With the small pocket binoculars I use for birdwatching, the image blossoms to match the photos on the website. Yes, it looks like a pinprick of bright light surrounded by a haze of glowing gas or droplets. I kept dropping the binoculars and looking, then looking through them again. I couldn't believe the difference. My eye told me it was just a star, but the binoculars reveal the comet nature of the object. It is not displaying a tail at present.

I usually rely on Guy Ottwell's guide to the sky, but that was printed last December and of course he had no clue that this event was going to occur. In fact, 17P/Holmes isn't even mentioned, because it is normally so faint. He must already be preparing the text for the 2008 edition, or may have already sent it to print. I'm sure he'll be chagrined if he missed the chance to comment on this in retrospect.

The comet is bright enough to see even through city lights. Try to catch it between sunset and moonrise, presently between 6:30 and 9:00 pm local daylight time in the US. Unless you have a really dark sky, you'll probably need binoculars or a small telescope to see the detail. It's worth the effort though. In fact, it is much more spectacular than Halley's comet was on it's most recent appearance.

Without Ottwell's guidance, I'm at a loss to interpret the tables of orbital data available at Spaceweather.com. I don't know if the comet is approaching perihelion or already moving away from it. Perhaps someone like dakhun will tell us. If it is still inbound, then there is a possibility of a really spectacular display.

Interestingly, 17P/Holmes did something similar back in 1892 or so. Since then, it has remained quite undistinguished until this year. The speculation seems to be that the comet has sinkholes or ice caves in it, and when one collapses it exposes new surfaces to rapid evaporation and erosion all at once, producing this nova-like effect.

So why am I irritated? LIght pollution and stupid (very stupid) neighbors. It's bad enough that our once clear view of the Milky Way has been eroded by useless parking lot lighting in the blossoming suburbs 20 or 30 miles from here, but we also have an immediate next door neighbor who is apparently terrified of the dark. She keeps four blazing high powered floodlights aimed at her driveway, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are never off. When there is snow on the ground they are blinding. They shine right in my dining room window and I could read by them in winter even though they are a football field away. Fortunately, my view to the north is best by going to the pasture, which is behind her house, away from those obnoxious lights and usually darker. Not tonight. on my second trip out there, she apparently noticed the sound of my feet in the leaves or something. Before I was done locating and examining the comet, wham, on comes another million-watt floodlight right in my face. This thing is casting shadows a full quarter mile long, and her two ill-behaved yappy dogs come charging out of the house barking at the maximum volume they can obtain. Said mutts know better than to cross the property line now, but they track me all along it as if it were a fence, barking their guts out. She stands under the floodlight calling them in a shrill voice, which they ignore, because neither of them has had the least obedience training. There is no point in arguing with her about this, she just doesn't get it. She can't understand why anyone would go out in the middle of the night to "look at stars" and is sure that anything moving around out there in the dark is either about to rob her or eat her flowerbeds.

The moon was rising anyway, so I just came back inside. I think I need to move to Wyoming or something.

When the present collapse in the housing market recovers, they will begin to progress again on the obscene development just north of me. Where there was just a 400 acre cornfield, there will be 85 suburban houses, every one of them equipped with enough light polluting and noise producing gadgetry to make me weep. Losing the Milky Way in the last ten years will be as nothing. I will lose all but the brightest stars, and all of my quiet. It will be perpetual lawnmowers by day, and blaring television receivers by night, I'm sure. My abnormally sensitive hearing detects neighbors having a party half a mile or more away now. Some 85 neighbors at a quarter mile is likely to be unbearable.

Tags: astronomy
Mood: cranky

So it was clearer tonight than last, though still a bit hazy, and we went out after sunset to look at the Venus-Saturn conjunction. At first I was a little disappointed. It may look spectacular through a wide-field telescope, but to the naked eye or with my bird-watching binoculars Venus pretty much steals the show. The inner planet is blindingly bright, while Saturn is not in a good position in relation to the sun and looks like a star, somewhere between first and second magnitude. They really are within less than a degree of each other, but just barely. It's about half the width of my thumb when held at arm's length. Nonetheless, it's an interesting view. There's another very bright planet high in the southeast. It's probably Jupiter, judging by the brightness, but I haven't looked up a chart to be sure.

The real fun thing is actually the fireflies. They are out in full force, making the woods downright ghostly with their flitting lights, and hanging about in the trees as high as 30 or 40 feet up. This is very much like a scene from Fantasia and I wish I could capture it with a camera to show those of you unfortunate enough to live where there are no fireflies. We also spotted a number of bats cruising about, collecting mosquitos no doubt and welcome to all they can eat.

We had cheap champagne with dinner (celebrating all weekend, heh) so the effect of all this may be somewhat artificially enhanced, but it's fun anyway.

Tags: astronomy, wildlife
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: chipper

As often happens with bitter cold in winter here, the sky is crystal clear tonight. Venus was spectacular just after sunset, calling to mind for me the story of Eärendil in Tolkien, the origin of the evening star. In the new moon, it seems so bright that it might almost cast shadows all by itself. Orion is high in the southwest, probably one of the best recognized and certainly brightest of constellations. Only the "big dipper" (properly Ursa Major) is better known I think. I had brief thoughts about hauling my telescope out from the barn loft, but it is just too cold out there. The only reason I was out after sunset was that I had been doing the animal chores alone and underestimated the extra time I would need for hauling water by myself.

Gary is at his mom's place in Chicago tonight, having stayed here last week so he didn't think he could skip again. She needs his help with groceries and getting her prescriptions. I'm most grateful that he filled up the wood rack in the garage before leaving, as I need the woodstove tonight for sure.

Today was the deadline for libraries to make a decision whether to join our rebel group or stay with the main flock. One that had declared an intention to join us was forced to back down by a deadlock among its board members. So it's now official, there are eight of us. We serve a geographically contiguous region and are used to working together and using a common catalog database. I expect things to go pretty smoothly from here on with that.

And I think that's the limit of my tolerance for sitting in this chilly room where the computer is, so I'm going back to the stove and the dogs.

Tags: astronomy, weather, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: cold