At night

Jupiter from our back door a few minutes ago. There's blue in the sky because it was a fairly long exposure, with my elbow and the back of my head jammed up against the doorframe. The long exposure is why most things that should be round or pinpoints are actually smears, and why Jupiter appears as a starburst. It looks like there are only three Jovian moons, all on the left side of Jupiter. But the "one" closest to the starburst effect of Jupiter is actually two moons. If it weren't as bright, you could see that one is partially behind the other. In order from the left, they are Callisto and Europa, and then together, Io and Ganymede, with Io just above Ganymede. Don't ask me what the three stars are to the right of Jove. I don't know. But I know that right now there is a dim galaxy between Jupiter and these three stars. Its name is IC1821. If I had a much better lens (or maybe just an ordinary telescope . . . I dunno) I might see it. But it isn't in my picture.

Looking NE from our back door about an hour ago, this moony sky presented itself.

The view from the back door a few minutes ago. A little dwy of snow was passing by, and it dropped about a cm of snow on our deck, and obscured the moon.

I keep saying, "You seen one, you seen 'em all" about moon pictures. And it's true. But they are still pretty. So I keep taking them. This was at suppertime, or just before, while the moon was still in the sky. It's gone down now.

The moon in her first quarter, behind the bare trees of our back yard and the light scudding clouds in a steep breeze.

Despite its reputation of being a soil-less barren rock, the island on which I live has a lot of trees. And the capital city is particularly well-treed. I cannot get much clear view of the sky from anywhere near our house. Yesterday as supper was cooking, I went out the front door to the street to see the moon rising in the northeast sky. It was a day before the actual fullness (today), but it nonetheless looked full to the eye. I liked the colour in the sky, here heavily pixelated from the high ISO I used, and the patterns of wires and telephone poles.

We don't see mummers much on our street. But I was getting out of the car this afternoon when I saw these two people rigging up alongside their own car, readying to go mummering in a house across and up the street a ways. I don't know those neighbours and I am pretty sure I also don't know these mummers, both of whom were probably in their eighties and looking a little frail as they crossed the street. Before they crossed I asked to take their picture. But they were already moving and I did not take the time to set the camera to a more suitable ISO. Thus a moving picture, Oh well. Maybe there'll be more. :)

Apparently "nacreous cloud" is some kind of technical term. I have no idea if this picture of what's outside my door right now fits that technical bill, but it sure looks nacreous to me.

I am in the city most nights. There, stray lights diminish the view of the sky. And from our back-door, as in this picture, I can see the sky mostly only through the trees. Luckily in winter they have no leaves. But the trees still have branches and finding a good spot to stand to see the stars I want to see is a little like a one-sided fencing dance. Back and forth, up and down, etc., until they all show at once. Behind the branches, in the sorta middle of the picture is Orion's belt, three stars in a short line. One of Orion's shoulders is marked by Betelgeuse in the upper left, a sorta-reddish star. The other of his shoulders is marked by Bellatrix in the centre top, a blueish sort of star. And one of his heels is marked by Rigel in the bottom right of the photo. Not the best picture of Orion's parts I could have made, but the best I could do without driving some distance. And I like the winter branches.

And *outside* our kitchen window, Jupiter can be seen. The camera in this picture was focussed on Jupiter, its moons, and the stars, so the branches of the tree (lit by street lights) are completely out of focus. That is why it looks like you can see stars right in the middle of some branches. You can only see two of Jove's Galilean moons right now: Ganymede and Callisto, both to the lower right of it. Io and Europa are both obscured by Jove.

It was getting dark and the snow was falling. So the tree was turned on. This was a half hour ago and we expect the city to be shut down tomorrow.

I was halfway out to the street with a path wide enough to put the garbage out in the morning when I leant on my shovel to rest. And then I rested the camera on the shovel to take a picture out to the street. We had about 45 cm of snow in the past 36 hours but it seems to be turning to rain right now.

Our latest storm has not passed by yet. The forecasters are telling us the final count will be about 80 cm. I shovelled a safety path from our two outside doors tonight but I didn't dare start on most of the deck. We won't be sitting in the deck chairs tomorrow morning sipping our tea.

After supper as I sat down to read in my favourite chair, after much shovelling yesterday and today, I looked out the front window. This is what I saw.

The moon, two and a half days old, sinking down into the horizon, with Jupiter presiding above. The shutter speed was slow enough that I got a fairly good picture of the unlit part of the moon. The old fellas, the ones in my grandfather's generation, used to call that the new moon with the old one in its arms.

This top section of Feaver's Lane in downtown St. John's, down from Queen's Road to Bond Street, is really just a footpath nowadays. The lower section, which runs between Bond Street and Gower Street, is somewhat wider. It's one of the public rights-of-way that were preserved after the Great Fire of 1892 but which, as spaces maybe wide enough for moving vehicles, were superseded by other nearby streets. But it's still an official roadway that the City lights. But it looks like the livyers must shovel the snow themselves.

This was last night when the moon was 96% illuminated. It's *really* full early tomorrow morning. But you can howl whenever you like.

I was in university before I heard any other name for these things than “carpenter” and I still call them that. I know people who call them “boat-builders” and “builder-boats.” And some who say “sow bug.” I was much older than university age before I found out they are closer relatives to lobsters than to bees. This one was crawling up the clapboard on our house this morning