In addition to astronomy, I have always enjoyed poetry- it is a little known fact that back in the late 20th century, I studied English literature on the way to my bachelors degree...to be specific, I studied Shakespeare extensively, as well as a few other Renaissance era poets. Shakespeare's plays and poems are filled with celestial imagery and metaphor, and perhaps in future posts I will share some.
Today, my good friend Laura sent me a poem that resonated with me instantly. She found it on the website of American Public Media's
The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor. If you enjoy it, google the author and buy his books!
Flying at Night
By Ted Kooser
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
In mid November, observers around the world began to take note of what has been termed the SEB Revival. There is an interesting article on NASA's webpage that details much of what has taken place since the SEB's disappearance in the spring, including many spectacular infrared images. Two nights ago I opened up the Lost Pleiad Observatory just at sundown to begin to let the telescope acclimate to ambient temperature. There was a bit of high level cirrus hanging around and I noticed that Jupiter was blazing through the thin cloud layer. Visual observers know that often a slight bit of haze can actually improve views of Jupiter by cutting down on the brilliance and allowing for greater contrast- so I decided to put dinner on hold and take a peek at the king...and I was not disappointed! I was treated to a steady view of the SEB revival. While the sketch to the right does not do the eyepiece view justice, you can see that there was a distinct dark band in the south, that included a bright knot on the central meridian. The band appeared to curve up toward the equator on the proceeding limb (left in the sketch). Utilizing my TEC 140 refractor at 196x, the sketch was completed at 0043 UT on December 9th (5:43 PM local time on December 8th).
