Happy Easter Saturday everyone! This tiny green fuzzy blob, photographed by A1, is the Mother of Dragons.
Category: Astronomy
Jupiter Collapsing
A2 went to town today and was surprised to see the solar system up there, though Jupiter had had an unfortunate implosion. Turns out it was part of an Easter space extravaganza.
A2 is reading Sanctuary by Dave Hutchinson, set in a postdiluvian feudal society but nonetheless centred on police action against a serial killer. Most of the non-genre novels I have read during my fast have featured crimes.
Night
After our family dinner of roast chicken and pannettone pudding, at which we scored a pathetic 7.5 on the GSQ, we went out to look for comet 12P/Pons-Brooks and with faint hopes of an aurora. Sadly we saw neither.
A1 is reading Brandenburg by Henry Porter.
We are watching 3 Body Problem.
Moon of Ramadan
The Moon is wearing a veil of cloud and Jupiter is standing by.
A1 is reading Better the Blood* by Michael Bennett, a somewhat right-on tale of delayed revenge for the heinous maltreatment of the indigenous Māori population of New Zealand Aotearoa. A2 is rereading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell.
Wolf Moon
Full Moon in a corona on a blustery night. Since Storm Gerrit, we have had Storm Henk and Storm Isha and now it’s Storm Jocelyn’s turn.
A1 is rereading Why We Die by Mick Herron. A2 is rereading the magnificent Bel Canto* by Ann Patchett (the * denotes it is a library book but we have a copy somewhere in the house along with two other Mick Herron books which we also can’t find). Terrorists and hostages brought together by music.
Belt of Venus
The Belt of Venus is the pinkish area in the centre of the picture. The darker blueish area below is the shadow of the Earth, rising as the Sun sets.
A1 is reading Too Close to Breathe* by Olivia Kiernan. A2 is reading The Snow Girl* by Javier Castillo; a dogged reporter on the case of a lost child.
Starry Starry Night
A1 and 2 went out in the clear and chilly night to watch the Geminids. We saw several bright and speedy meteors but none showed up on the photographs.
A1 is reading You Will Never Be Found* and A2 is reading We Know You Remember*, both by Tove Asterdal.
Corona
Here comes the Moon again, in a circle of colours. Last night it shone so bright it woke us from our sleep.
A2 is rereading The Paper Eater by Liz Jensen; life on an artificial waste-processing island run by software turns out not so utopian after all.
Moonrise
The gibbous moon soars above the clouds and trees on a chilly (-1.4 °C) night.
A1 is reading The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard. A2 is reading Last Night in Montreal* by Emily St John Mandel.
September Supermoon
A1’s second attempt to catch the full moon on the rise through a tree. It has a nice pre-Halloween look but lost its lovely golden shine.
A2 is reading Wolf Pack* by Will Dean; a lone female infiltrates a cult run by a charismatic couple on a remote fortified farm.
Super Blue Moon
We were hoping to catch the biggest moon of the year and the second full moon of the month on the rise but it was behind a big tree and we were too tired (A1 from work, A2 from recovid) to chase after it. The big splash at the bottom (Tycho crater) was near where the Russian rocket crashed and the Indian lander landed, but they didn’t actually cause the splash.
Admin1 is reading Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod. Admin2 is rereading Dark Fire by CJ Sansom.
Sight of the Night: Perseid
We went out meteor-spotting last night, and we managed to capture a short, fast Perseid — the trail was short because it was close to the radiant point in Perseus. Admin2 also saw a fireball earlier.
Earthshine
The crescent Moon and Venus, together in the evening sky on the warmest day this year so far: 23.3°C.
Admin1 is rereading Tombland by CJ Sansom. Admin2 is reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay* by Michael Chabon, which was
Venus and the Pleiades
Hey Love Goddess! Meet the Seven Sisters and their crowd of hangers-on. We had a lovely clear night after a day of random showers but didn’t manage to spot Mercury.
We are watching Happy Valley series 3.
Admin1 is reading The Night Raids by Jim Kelly. Admin2 is reading The Siren* by Alison Bruce.
Three in a Row
The Moon, Jupiter and Venus all in a line behind a veil of wispy cloud. The Moon was actually a delicate crescent, but was subsumed in the general glow.
Admin2 is reading, appropriately, Nightrise by Jim Kelly, which features some special clouds.
Sight of the Night: C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
This green blob was last seen 50,000 years ago.
January 2023 was slightly warmer than January 2022, twice as wet, and our second sunniest January ever: 17.332kWh.
Admin1 is rereading Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson. Admin2 is reading The Water Clock by Jim Kelly.
Sun…
Seen through the morning fog and a few filters: the Sun with a massive sunspot, 5 times the size of the Earth.
…Light
And here is The Light (shopping/hotel/cinema complex which banned Admin2 from taking photos in case there were celebrities hanging out there, coz we all know celebs hate being photographed) lit up by a low sun yesterday when our solar panels hit 0.92kWh, best since last November.
Admin1 is reading The Kingdoms and Admin2 is reading The Lost Future of Pepperharrow in our ongoing Natasha Pulley fest.
Streets of Darkness
The Moon and Jupiter shine down from above and the lights of the city twinkle in the distance. Streets of Darkness is also the title of the book Admin2 is reading, by AA Dhand, about crime and drugs and violence and riots in Bradford, which always seems like a nice place when we visit.
Admin1 is reading The Old Enemy by Henry Porter.
Mars occultation
We got up this morning at 4:30am to be greeted by cloud cover, but within 15 minutes it had cleared, allowing us to see the occultation of Mars by the Moon, starting just before 5am from Leeds. This is a quick and dirty upload, and a rather poor animation; more later perhaps.
The photos were taken through an ETX125 telescope with an attached Canon 7D camera, controlled from a Pixel 6a mobile running the excellent DSLR Controller app. There’s just a suggestion of surface detail on Mars.
Andromeda Galaxy
This picture is a tiny detail from an unzoomed shot taken with Admin1’s new phone — a Pixel 6a — from the light-polluted suburban environment of our garden. The inset in the green circle is a screen grab from Stellarium, a wonderful sky simulation program available for Linux and Windows. It shows that the faintly elongated blur at centre-left is, indeed, the Andromeda Galaxy; all the surrounding stars are correct. Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda soon. (OK, in about 5 billion years; no worries.)
It’s amazing that a small phone can capture something like this.
Today 2022 became our best year ever on the solar panels, and Admin1 is reading The Blood Divide by AA Dhand.
Starry Starry Night
Another lovely photo from Admin1’s new phone; the tiny cluster on the right is the Pleiades, the bright spot near the centre is Mars. Taken on the first clear night for ages, when the temperature dropped to 0.6 °C. Today is cloudy and rainy again.
Admin2 is reading Box 88)* by Charles Cumming.
Moon, Clouds, Planet
The moon shining down in a misty sky. This morning was properly foggy.
We had our family meal of chicken, bacon and broccoli and apple meringue (we are constantly trying out new recipes to get shot of our glut of apples) and scored a magnificent THIRTEEN on the GSQ.
Admin1 is rereading Monstrous Regiment by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is rereading Beyond Black by Dame Hilary Mantel, which is beyond brilliant.
Moon Bites Sun
A very partial eclipse, taken through an infrared filter.
Admin1 is rereading Reaper Man by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver.
Silvery Moon (& Jupiter)
The almost-full moon through a veil of cirrus, and a planet so close it looks like a little ball.
Admin1 is rereading Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is rereading The Evidence by Christopher Priest.
Next day: the family came round for stroggers and sticky toffee apple pudding and we scored a respectable 10 on the GSQ.
Shine On Sturgeon Moon
Ongoing hot sunny days and warm nights with clear skies occasionally crossed by meteors.
Admin1 is rereading The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith and Admin2 is reading Uncanny and Improbable Events* by Amitrav Ghosh, which is meant to be about climate change but is mostly about the impressive number of books in all genres that Amitrav has read.