Day of Producing Art

It's been a while since I photographed the planets.  Saturday, we had a break in the weather:  the morning sky was clear and cold, which meant that Venus, the Moon and Mars were visible in the pre-dawn sky.  Venus is approaching its greatest brilliance, in a few days it should be visible during the day.  The Moon was three days before being new, and rose something like 5 AM.   Mars was dim compared to the Moon and Venus.

All three objects were fairly low in the sky, which necessitated crossing the street with camera and tripod. After contending with some awkwardly placed power lines, I managed to frame the sky over the eaves of neighbors' houses.  It would have been nice to have a tree's silhouette in the photo, but the rooflines looked like mountains or possibly pyramids.  

After a quick jaunt to the store for tea, I set up the camera and tripod in the backyard against the arbor vita trees, focused on the fountain, and waited for the hummingbirds to appear.  Of course, the first hummingbird to appear came while I was futzing with the tripod and I only managed a blurry photo of it flying off.  I finished set-up.  I felt a little like some early twentieth century British Naturalist, as I had set up a small end table, chair and cushion, and had wrapped myself in faux leopard skin fleecy blanket.  

As I was sipping my rapidly cooling tea, a fierce humming signaled the sudden arrival of a bright red hummingbird.  It peered at me down its long and pointy beak, and, as I Tweeted later, I was pretty sure it was challenging me to a duel over ownership of the fountain ("Hello.  I am a hummingbird.  This is my fountain.  Prepare to die.")  

The light meter on the camera helped me to gauge the sun's progress, as I would have to adjust the shutter speed to compensate for the increase in light.   When the hummingbirds came to the fountain I was mostly ready.  I took many photos, fiddled with fine-tuning the camera's focus, and managed a number of good shots and one excellent one (the first one).  

By the time my tea had defrosted the glass top of the end table, it was too cold to drink.  

I spent the rest of the morning processing photos, and then it was time to go to my folks for a socially distanced celebration of my Dad's birthday.  We brought gluten-free cupcakes as a alternative to a socially closer birthday cake with candles.  Mark and I (okay, mostly Mark) had painted a sign for his garage, which he's converted into a combination wood shop, gym, and indoor dog play area.  It looked a little like a medieval manuscript, with the H in his name outlined and a medieval dog at the bottom.  I'm pretty sure he liked it, or at least appreciated it.  His ginormous German Shepherd and Aoife played together; we played "Apples to Apples."  

Then it was time to run home and feed the cats.  

The evening wound up with the finishing touches on a the latest geometric Math Art.  

If Saturday was the Day of Producing Art, Sunday was the day of Relative Sloth.  

Diner Theatre Dream

 I've woken up early, with "Don't Rain On My Parade" playing in my head and the remains of a convoluted dream.  I'm going to guess that writing last night and the clips of "Glee" Mark was watching last night are the cause.

The dream started out as a musical set in a diner on top of a really tall tower.  Thinking back, the diner started out as a gas stop from earlier in the dream.  I was trying to pay for a fountain Pepsi, which involved standing in a line to feed a dollar bill into a machine's slot, moving down a bit in a line (the dream was apparently pre-COVID, because there was no mask anxiety), and then retreaving a large, soda-filled paper cup from a dispenser.  There was something about a receipt and a missing customer's food.

I wandered around the gas stop's kitchen, and the diner somehow transformed to being a tower-top dinner theatre.  I'm not sure what the play was; probably "Anything Goes" meets "Guys and Dolls" because everyone seemed to have New York accents and I was dressed in 1920's era clothing.  The dream turned into a typical, "the play's started and I'm not quite remembering my lines" dream, and then a small light blew out or something, and the other actor in the opening scene had to deal with with it, and said, "Mr. Burridge, come over here."  The orchestra vamped.  I looked around the dinner theatre, knowing that my folks were in the audience somewhere, and that I was going to have to make something up.  So I started to improvise a song.  "Follow the candle," was a repeated phrase, and in the dream I was desperately trying to rhyme a particularly difficult word that I can't recall waking (writing this it's harder not to come up with rhymes).   I picked up a lit red taper from someone's table and paraded back and forth on the stage, singing "Follow the candle," to what in waking life I'm recognizing as "Follow the Fold," from "Guys and Dolls."  

The song concluded, and the dream shifted from a dinner theatre show to a sci-fi adventure set in a old diner atop a really tall tower.  The diner transformed from a 40's New York style metallic diner to (I think) an Asian Fusion restaurant.  Or possibly an Asian couple's apartment.   Deep beneath the base of the tower, there was some kind of mystic energy source, like a ball of lightning ten feet across or something.  I have a image of a thermometer representing the tower, and the energy ball at the base is like a mercury reservoir.  We were supposed to raise the energy up to the top of the tower, I'm not sure why, it was one of those "we have to do this" dream things.      

There was something about a new owner of the tower being bad... and using the air conditioning units as a gateway for a cyber attack.  And the Asian wife being mad at the husband for something (like buying an RV or selling the silverwear or a similar sit-com dilemma)  and chasing him in a spherical capsule up the tower while he ran up the stairs.   Oh, and there was a toddler having a tantrum because she wanted her diaper changed, and she had climbed on the outside railing at the top of the tower to do so.   But the whole dream ended in the living room, where a tapestry rolled up like a curtain to show a screen with three other towers trying to contact us (or else the tapestry was like a TV screen).  "We'll send you aid," they said.  Their images on the tapestry became more blocky, like they were on a quilt made of squares and right triangles.  "Look for that which is there and not there," they said, and then faded from view.   (In waking life I took this to mean a feeling, like love, or a sense of family or community -- something there, but intangible).    

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The thick cloud cover that hid the sky when I first woke up has cleared.  The waning crescent moon is near Spica, which I mistook for Mars for a second.  Venus is low on the horizon, shining through a rent in the clouds.  It's two outstretched hands away from the Moon, so Friday morning will the morning for a conjunction.  If the clouds allow. 

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Yesterday afternoon, some roofing contractor rang our doorbell  (I had hoped it was a package delivery) and started his rambly, "this isn't a sales pitch" sales pitch (after retreating to the bottom of the porch stairs).    I thought he was only going to ask a few quick questions, but I finally stopped him after what I'm thinking was about a minute or two and said, "I'm going to go inside now, because I'm really uncomfortable that you're not wearing a mask."  

Mark and I couldn't believe it, considering he was polling the neighborhood asking folks how old their roofs were.  

Moon and Regulus

 Gym Report:  Skipped the gym last Monday, but went Wednesday night (9-26).  Did the usual routine, although with all the walking back and forth to The Child's school, I figured I could skimp a bit on the elliptical. 

This morning (Thursday) the Moon was close to Regulus (the "Little King" in the constellation of Leo. 

I arose a little earlier than usual and stumbled out.  Orion was high and clear in the sky, but the moon and Regulus were behind some foggy haze.  I stumbled back inside and returned with my camera to the back deck.  Without the remote.  And took some pictures.  This resulted in jiggly photos of the moon and double-exposed images of Regulus.

Luckily, I had woken up early enough to go back outside, plant the tripod on the (non-wiggly) deck and dig up the remote (so the camera wouldn't be vibrating from my pressing the stutter button).

The sky had lightened and the Moon had risen above the bands of clouds, which were turning pink from Rosy Fingered Dawn.

Moon Photo

Here, have a picture of the moon from last week, when it was near the constellation Taurus.

Moon and Aldebaran

Over the weekend, I took some photographs of the Moon and Aldebaran.  This time around, the Moon was a crescent as she danced through the constellation of Taurus.  I would have liked it if the Moon were visible when it was much closer to Aldebaran, but that would have required taking photos on the other side of Earth. 

More photos of the Moon and Aldebaran may be found here



While I was at it, I snapped a few shots of the Pleiades. 

Jan 1 Moon Conjunct Venus

More details about New Year's -- The first three days of January, the Moon sailed past Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury.  I was hoping that I would be able to see (and photograph) the early morning celestial show.  Monday, December 31, the skies were cloudy and instead of moon photographs, I ended up wandering around Amazon Park in the fog.

Tuesday morning, the clouds were more cooperative, and the Moon was about eight degrees south of Venus.  The morning was much colder than the previous day's, and the basin of water in our back was frozen through.  I took a few shots and realized that the night was hazier than I thought.

At one point, Spencer (Cicero's brother) came up hoping for kitty treats or something (I'm pretty sure he comes over on a regular basis at 5:30 AM to see if Smokey or Cicero will come out and play), but ran away when I said hello.

I managed to get a wide-angle shot of Jupiter (through the trees and power line -- you can see at the very tip of one of the branches between two of the power lines), Venus and the Moon.  Since it was cold, and I didn't want to freeze the camera (or myself), I went back in and crashed on the couch looking out at the sky.  I dozed a little, and then woke suddenly to a purple sky.

High clouds and con-trails provided some artistic shots.  At another point, I snapped a shot as an airplane occluded the Moon.  I was hoping for a cool outline, but got the trails from the wing lights instead.


More photos here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/j6ukwDZCEsNA7Zqo6 

Moon Conjunct Venus

The mornings have been mostly clear Tuesday and Wednesday, and I've been able to observe the Moon as it swings past Venus (Tuesday) and between Venus and Jupiter (Wednesday).  Tuesday, I had the wherewithal to take some photos.  Wednesday, I was content to stare at the three lumens in the cobalt sky.

Jupiter wasn't in the best place to photograph (at least from our yard), and since I didn't want to traipse around in slippers, pj's and a bathrobe in the 28F morning, I was content to snap a shot of Jupiter through the power lines.

More photos here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/j6ukwDZCEsNA7Zqo6 

Last Old Moon of 2018

This is probably the last morning that we'll be able to see the Old Moon.

Although, if the sky is clear enough, we might be able to catch a glimpse before the sun rises.

I'm not sure if I managed to site Mercury this morning, or if the object at the 8 o'clock position is Libra Gamma.

December Moon Conjunct Venus

This morning I almost forgot that the Moon and Venus were going to be next to each other. 

I was feeling pretty lazy when the alarm clock went off and I woke up and I really didn't want to get out of bed. 

Seriously. 

The thought if hibernating all day was extremely attractive.  Things felt sore, and I wondered if maybe I was fighting off a cold or something.

 Eventually, I did, did my morning ablutions, and Mark said something about the Moon and I threw on some clothes and rushed out with my camera. 

The moon was a bright sliver in the pre-dawn sky, and Venus was super-bright.  I snapped a few shots and made sure to drink in the spectacle with my own eyes and appreciate it. 

I always joke to myself that a bright Venus with a new Moon is Luv Magic.  Upon reflection about a bright Venus with an old Moon, I think it's Tuck You Into Bed After A Mug of Hot Chocolate Magic.