All Things Equal...

Autumn officially begins today (9:21 pm local time) as the equinox means that the sun enters the southern hemisphere and our days will now be shorter than our nights.**  And so we begin our 6 months of darkness.  Our 6 months of cold.  Our 6 months of reflection.

But for this one day, we are balanced, and as we celebrate the balance of light and dark in our world, we can contemplate balance in other ways.  This is a good time to think about our time... do we make enough time for our families?  For our pleasures and for our work?  Can we balance our fun side with our responsible side, our hedonistic side with our industrious side?  Our social side with our reflective side?

And, on a purely physical note, do we do enough yoga (or whatever) that we can stand on one foot without falling over?  That's important too.

**Actually, that's only sort of true... We measure sunrise and sunset times by the time the sun first comes over the horizon (rise) and when the last bit disappears behind the horizon (set).  There will still be longer than 12 hours between those times until Sunday, when we have equilux (equal light).  On the equinox, it's 12 hours between when the sun's midline appears on the horizon and hits that point again at night.

Another interesting thing about the equinox -- they are the only days when the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west (not southwest or northwest...)

Happy Harvest

Tonight is the Harvest Moon -- the full moon closest to the fall equinox next week.  These full moons are often big and orange and lovely as they rise... yesterday's full-minus-one moon was lovely rising large to the east just as the sun set in the west.  Tonight's could be even better... if it's not covered in clouds (as predicted)... we'll see!  This year's Harvest moon also will have a penumbral lunar eclipse, though it won't be visible here at all, or anywhere very much.  It will just appear as a slight faintening of the moon as the moon passes through the very edge of the earth's shadow.  (A full lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes through the earth's shadow, and they line up perfectly, so the earth itself blocks the sun's rays from reflecting off the moon.)

At any rate... a good night for a moonlit evening stroll!

Times, They Are A-Changin'

As we approach the Harvest Moon on Friday and the Equinox on Thursday next, things have been feeling different... while days have been lovely, nights have dropped into the 50's.  It is a noticeably un-summer-like cool when I leave in the morning.  Plus, the shortening days -- which change the drastically around the equinoxes, about 3 light minutes lost per day -- are really noticeable.  It's dark before I'm ready (and we haven't even fallen back)!

Ugh. I see the beauty in all seasons and weather, but I do love summer.

Welcome Sun!

It may be the middle of the night (at the moment of the equinox), but still we welcome the sun back to the northern hemisphere.  Across distance and culture, these special astronomical moments are times to mark and celebrate the season's passage... and at the vernal equinox in particular, a time to look forward in anticipation of new life and light.

Sun, I'm happy to have you back in the northern hemisphere, with your longer days and energizing light.  We emerge from the darkness!
Happy Spring!

Super Moon!

So... I will start by saying that iPhone is great in general, but for photos of the moon, more specialized equipment might help. Ah, well...

This is the super moon rising. It really was quite large on the horizon when it was first visible.  Very lovely, though the picture doesn't do it justice.

It took another hour and a half before we could really see it eclipsing. It just started to disappear in shadow, the left side darkening gradually. This picture was taken when it was a little more than half shadowed, though the glare makes it look more there than it was. 

Shortly thereafter, clouds covered the sky so I won't get to see the full eclipse but what I saw was pretty cool. And lucky, I suppose... It was cloudy most of the day!

Happy Fall

At around 3:30 am today, autumn officially begins.

That's right -- it's the fall equinox.  It seems like this day has little importance to us now... though it's the official start of a new season, most people count fall as starting either after Labor Day (the unofficial end of summer), when school starts and cooler weather typically sets in.

However, this day had great significance in the lives of our ancestors.  In many cultures, a major harvest festival takes place around this time, harkening back to the significance of this date.  In a world when people were more immediately connected to the natural world and dependent upon it for their survival, this was an important turning point in the year... the time to start focusing on caching and preparing for winter.  It meant multiple things.  On the one hand, life was about to get hard.  Food wouldn't be as easy to come by, great amounts of energy would be needed just to keep warm and survive.  On the other hand, summer means long days often filled with work from dawn 'til dusk, whereas winter actually meant more time inside, connecting with family and friends.  The pace of life changed, became more reflective.

Equinox translates to "equal night;" it is the day when day and night are each 12 hours in length (though not really -- due to refraction and latitude, it's slightly off, but... close enough!)  It's the day when the sun passes over the equator.  It will now spend the next six months in the southern hemisphere, from our earthly perspective, (and oh, we northerners will miss it!)

One of the most noticeable things to me about the days surrounding the equinoxes is the daily change in daylight.  If you think about a graph of daylight hours over time (example), the largest changes each day are going to happen not at the top and bottom of the waves, but in the middle, at the equinoxes.  From yesterday, 9/22, to today, 9/23, we lost 3 full minutes of daylight.  In comparison, it's about a minute a day different in December. Three minutes may not seem big... but that's a 21 minute difference in day length over the course of a week.  That's a noticeable change.  

At any rate... Happy Autumn!

Astronomy Woes

Astronomy and I? We haven't been getting along. 

First, we were supposed to have an astronomy night last night, a chance for students to be able to see what they had learned about in class. We had to make a cancellation decision by the end of the school day, at which point it was mostly cloudy. Predictions were for gradual clearing but not by the time we needed... But it seemed to be happening faster than they were saying... I said this: if we cancel, it will be clear as a bell at 8 pm. If we don't, it will be cloudy. 

I think controlling the weather would be a pretty awesome superpower to have, though a lot of complications... But this was not the type of control I wanted! 

Long story short, using the best days we had, we cancelled. At 8 pm, the sky was cloudless and stars/planets were visible. Of course. (I guess my real issue here is with the weather, not astronomy. Whatever.)

Upside: I have superpowers!

So then, I wanted to see the lunar eclipse this morning. I read the best views would be just before 6:30 (though we wouldn't see it 100% in this area). When I awoke at like 5 am, I thought I saw the moon, eerily orange, out my window. However, I wasn't wearing contact lenses, so that really could have been anything. Chris holding a poster up, alien space ship, streetlight... But I think it was the partly eclipsed moon. Anyhow, knowing the best views were supposed to be over an hour later, I went back to sleep, woke up at 6 am, and.... Moon has set! Can't see it at all! Curses!

Oh well. Jump start on Saturday.

Happy Winter!

Winter Solstice... the ray of hope in our darkest days.  In science, as in life, it may be that as we stand on the precipice, looking at the beginning of months of hardship and trial, things start to get just a little bit brighter.  Winter truly is a season of scarcity and challenges for animals that don't have the human luxuries of central heating and grocery store food.  Plants still face months of dormancy before they will green with new life, so food sources are severely limited... caches painstakingly collected and stored in the fall, a few leftover seeds, bark and twigs.  The succulent newness of leafy greens is so far away it's hardly imaginable, even to me.  And this at the time when the body most needs energy to heat itself.  It would be a bleak outlook, I think, if animals had the capacity to look forward into the future.  

And yet... after months of our days growing oppressively short, they will... almost imperceptibly at first... start to lengthen.  Today is the winter solstice, when the earth's tilt causes the sun to hit (at 5:12 am local time) its southern-most angle of shine upon the earth's surface.  For the next 6 months, as we travel around the sun on our topsy-turvy cosmic journey, we northern-hemisphere-dwellers will get the sun's light more and more directly each day.    Eventually the sun's rays will shine upon us directly enough to start to warm the earth's surface.  And so the first calendar day of winter is also the day it begins to recede, to gradually lose its fight.  Our glimmer of light just as the hard times begin.

And winter this year tried to start with a show of seasonal power.  Now, I don't want to minimize the first winter storm of the year for those around the Midwest who were involved in traffic accidents or travel delays or whatever, but... for us, it was kind of a bust.  It began with rain... steady, drumming rain that kept me awake Wednesday night and into the small hours of Thursday morning, and continued to fall all day Thursday.  The world was wet and puddly and dreary and drippy... and relatively warm, hitting the mid-40s.  The forecasters' predicted snowfall decreased as the hour of temperature drop drew near... but we still didn't even hit the large 2-6 inch target that meteorologists left open for us.  Around 4 pm Thursday the rain turned to sleet and wet heavy snow, which did mess with rush hour but didn't last very long into the night.  I went to bed with my driveway's blacktop still showing and I awoke to the same sight.  

That's not to say that winter didn't dawn with a fierce bite.  Piercing winds whip across the prairies and fields.  I look out, through wildly shaking locust branches, at a wind turbine whose motion is so fast it looks like a blurry circle.  The small amount of snow that fell has frozen solid, a crunchy crust covering cars and pavement, trees and grasses.  Now that the sun has finally risen on this shortest day of the year, the frozen drops on the tree branches catch the light and sparkle.  Diamonds all over are spectacular holiday decorations.  Plus, it's cold -- in the mid 20s but those winds from the north make it feel much colder.

And this... is just the beginning!  Happy first day of winter!

Sun Rise, Moon Set

 This morning's nearly full moon was strikingly beautiful in the glowing western sky at sunrise.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to walk somewhere to get a picture of it without a roof in the scene, but... oh, well!

Happy Summer!

Today at 12:16 local time, the sun hit its northern-most point, thus officially beginning summer 2011. Or more accurately, the sun didn't do anything out of the ordinary, if you consider the sun's daily activities of creating enough energy by nuclear fusion to power our planet as a side job, and anchoring the solar system, etc., ordinary... but the earth, in its annual tilted orbit, hit the point when the north pole was tilted as much toward the sun as it gets. That makes this the longest day of the year for this particular location, and any other northern one.

Since we're traveling to Scotland (EXCITING!!!), we'll get some longer days... also some computer-free days, so expect another absence, followed by some prolific blogging...

Happy Solstice!

Vernal Equinox

It may be a rainy and chilly day, but today we welcome the sun back to the northern hemisphere. We look forward to leaves emerging, casting a chartreuse haze on the horizon. We look forward to flowers blooming and the prairie greening. We look forward to days that stretch into evening, sweating in the garden and then reclining on the deck as the light grows dim, to open windows and the free toes of sandals. OK, so it may yet be WAY forward that we're looking... but it is, as they say, all down hill from here.

At 6:21 this evening, we celebrate the vernal equinox, and we welcome the sun, the source of energy for all living things, back to our half of the world.

I've Got the Fever

Spring came! With temperatures topping 60 today, we finally had one of those early warm days that makes you really feel like it's over, we're on our way out, Spring has Spring! Inevitably, these days come before a huge snow storm or something... but while it was here, I took full advantage. I walked at lunch, I walked after work. (The later was, ostensibly, for fitness. I walked instead of working out, which was my original plan. The problem with this is, I stop to look at things. I could somewhat alleviate this problem by not carrying my camera -- thereby also ensuring that I saw "the coolest thing ever" -- but not entirely. I'd still stop to study and admire things.) So anyhow... here are some of the discoveries, both phenologically significant and not:

Aspen catkins.

Bulb plants emerge, here, hyacinths.

The lake was filled with ducks (and geese and swans). I think these are goldeneyes based on the white cheek spot in the right photo... but I didn't have binocs and I'm not that great of a birder anyhow -- it's possible there were 5 types of ducks there rather than just 2 (the other being mallard). Note: That open water isn't on the same lake I always use to determine ice off, which is still covered. Have to remain consistent!

A maze of goose prints... they just looked cool.

And a maze of vole tunnels, with a little, igloo-esque house! The snow melted and they left it abandoned, a vole ghost town.

The moon and a redtail.

So many birds today... Cardinals calling constantly for the last week, robins galore, killdeer, a bunch of LBBs, and plenty of these RWBBs. I just chose to include the photo because it was a good picture.

Finally, this is today's mystery. If anyone knows this plant, please tell me what it is... These seedpods (2 inches long) were painfully thorny and stiff, filled with hard black seeds about 2-1/8 inch in diameter. The plant itself was about 2-3 feet tall with a thick stem and no leaves to be found. It branched in a pattern that reminded me of the flower heads on wild indigo.

I also sketched the mystery pod. But it had a lot of thorns and I kinda got tired of them...

What a Night

Yesterday was the winter solstice, and a full moon (although it was cloudy). I suppose those two correspond with way less frequency than "once in a blue moon." In fact, it's been over 10 years. Even more significant, there was also a lunar eclipse in the very early hours of the 21st, but the clouds, at least in this area, would have made it hard to see, were one awake and healthy enough to try. I, personally, was not... I have spent my winter break thus far being terrible ill... I'm getting better now... I missed another disappointing snowfall (less than 2 inches for us), and the shortest day of the year along with its once-in-a-lifetime eclipse (or once in several, as the last coincidence of an eclipse and the solstice was 632 years ago). I understand the eclipse was lovely in areas where the sky was clear...

Ah, well... next time?

Sunrise? Sunset?

One of the "things to do" at Acadia is to wake up at what I can only describe as the middle of the night, and drive at the (pardon my crass description) butt crack of dawn to the top of Cadillac Mountain to watch the sun rise. This event is special because, with the mountain's eastern location and elevation, people at its summit see the sun before anyone else in the USA.

We saved this activity for our last day. Partly, this seemed like a special way to end our trip, having some sort of poetic symmetry with how we ended our wedding. And partly it had a practical application... we wanted to leave very early and get in well over 12 hours of driving, so we had to wake up really early anyhow. The problem with saving it for the last day is... it's the last chance. So in the middle of the night, when thunderstorms awoke us, I decided that we would go anyhow. I hadn't been up to the top of Cadillac Mountain, and wanted to see it.

This is our sunrise from Cadillac Mountain.

I'm just kidding, of course. That was the western view. Here is the real sunrise.

Yup. That's right, it was raining and we were in a cloud. Oh, well. There were some spectacular lichens up there. Pink and orange, black and mint and olive...

The Dawning of a Brand New Day

The sun rose over Lake Michigan early this morning. We watched, while swatting mosquitoes, as the sky went from midnight blue to pink and orange and purple to the pale blue of morning.

Yesterday, we had perfect, lovely weather -- not too hot or humid, and delightfully sunny. As the sun set to the west, a full moon rose in the east. The night cooled down to make sitting by the fire comfortable and welcome. (Although there were mosquitoes then, too.) I hope that this beginning means a blessing on our marriage.

Welcome, Sun! (And Snow!)

On our journey through space, we hit a momentous occasion today. We have come to the point in our tilted orbit where the sun passes over the equator (at 12:32 CDT) and now shines more directly on the northern hemisphere.

We are thankful to the sun for our life force, the energy that fuels our bodies (and everything else), we are thankful for the plants that sustain us by creating sugars with the aid of its rays, we are thankful for lingering evenings in the yard and the feeling of warmth on our cheeks.

Today we welcome the sun... but someone forgot to inform the sun! We woke up to a white world.

This morning, Chris started his spring digging through the snow and earth to make a grave for Draco, the snake who died in the night of unknown causes. Sadness reigns for the moment.

Howlin' at the Moon

At 4 pm, the sky outside is clear blue, the sun low. The air is crisp, (euphemism for COLD). It's perfect weather for moon viewing, and tonight's is supposed to be special. The moon will not only be full, but super-sized! Tonight is a full perigee moon -- a full moon that coincides with the point in the moon's elliptical orbit when it is closest to the earth. This proximity will make the moon appear to be 14% larger and 30% brighter than any other full moon this year... Happy viewing!

Whooo's Out There?

Last night we went out looking for owls. We didn't see any, which is no great surprise given that "we" were a group of about 40 people -- students and parents. No matter how quiet you are, a group that big is going to scare off the wildlife.

We didn't scare off the heavens, though, and our evening walk was well worth our while in terms of astronomy. To the west, a waxing crescent moon was setting. The cloudless sky was populated with the creatures of legend... Orion the hunter and Sirius, his faithful dog. Taurus and the Pleiades, the princess Andromeda and her hero Perseus. Bears large and small. Auriga, the charioteer, which always reminds me not of a driver, but of a kitten of the same name with whom I once lived.

A lovely night...

Hanging Out

On the way to school...

A sliver of a crescent moon hung in a sky that went from "midnight blue" in the west -- all you Crayola crayon fans -- and faded to the sky blue of sunrise in the east. A star twinkled to the right of the moon, making it look like a storybook illustration. It was quite pretty.

Blue Moon

Last night's full moon -- the blue moon (see previous post) -- was lovely as it rose large through the bare tree branches and made its way to the top of the sky as the new year approached. I watched it through the window as the evening progressed. It was a beautiful backdrop for a night of delicious food, wonderful friends, and brain-testing fun. And now, on to a day that is sunny to the point of sparkling.

I hope everyone out there has a happy new year! I'm not much for resolutions, really. My friend Jamie has, in the past, blogged about resolutions endlessly -- 10 or 15 detailed things to work on, which she will then seriously analyze in terms of progress. They are the only blog entries she writes that are so long that I haven't had the patience to read them all. This year, hers is short and sweet. "Bee less grumpy." I can get on board with that... (but no promises, people. I said I'm not much for resolutions, at least not at such a random time as New Year's...)