Category: Moon

Earth’s natural satellite.

What Do Blackbear, Hunger, Snow and Wind Have in Common?

According to today’s post at Earthsky, the second full moon of the year, which usually falls in February, can be referred to as the Snow Moon, the Wind Moon, the Blackbear Moon or the Hunger Moon.

I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather today (74 degrees), I setup the telescope and attached the Pentax K100D to it for a couple of full moon snapshots:

Snow Moon Feb 2011
Snow Moon Feb 2011

I also took a quick look at the brightest star in the sky … Sirius (no photos yet, still need to have the tracking gears repaired on the Meade).

Keep Looking Up for Meteors and Darkening Moons

Next week, as early as the night of the 13th, the Geminid meteor shower returns.  A week later, and just in time for the longest night of the year, a total lunar eclipse is visible from four continents and the only total lunar eclipse for 2010.

Saturn and Venus are visible in the early morning hours (before dawn), and Saturn’s rings have returned from a two year hiatus hiding on edge.

I just hope the clouds stay far far away.

December Meteor Shower and Total Lunar Eclipse article from Space.com

Pumpkin Pies and Moon Pies

I ran to the grocery store after work this evening to pickup supplies for pumpkin pie baking.  Finding a parking spot proved challenging as everyone else must have had the same idea I did.  I managed to get in and out in less than thirty minutes.

Once home, I scrounged around for the church cookbook where my mom’s pumpkin pie recipe languishes most of the year.  I only make it twice a year, for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Moss Family Pumpkin Pies Nov 2010
Moss Family Pumpkin Pies Nov 2010

2 cans (15 oz.) pumpkin
1.5 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup egg whites
1 cup half & half
2 T melted butter
2 T molasses
3-4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 pie crusts (9 inch deep dish)

I combined all the ingredients in my mixer and stirred on the lowest setting.  I preheated my oven to 425 degrees.  I used a large cookie sheet to hold my two pie crusts (I used frozen ready-made crusts as I didn’t have time or energy to mess with making them from scratch).  I poured half of the pumpkin pie filling into each shell.  I put the sheet with the two pies in the oven for fifteen minutes, then reduced the temperature to 350 degrees and baked for another 45 minutes.

While the pies were baking, I decided to drive across the river (almost due east from my home in Lansing) to Bed, Bath & Beyond to purchase a couple of pie carriers so I could transport the pies to Texas on Wednesday.  I took K5 for the first leg of the trip and the nearly full moon shone through the leafless trees and reflected off the railroad tracks.

Once I returned home, with such a clear sky and low humidity, I got the telescope out and attached the digital camera to take a few photos of the ‘blue moon’ (one day late).  After taking a half dozen shots of the very bright moon, I removed the digital camera and repositioned the telescope to view Jupiter.  I used various eye pieces and saw the stripes of Jupiter and four of its moons (all to the left of the gas giant at this time – around 8:00 pm Central Mon 22 Nov 2010).   Even though the evening was a bit chilly, I’m glad I had another chance to dodge the recent cloud cover and spy on the moon and Jupiter again before winter weather arrives.

Meteors and Moons … Oh My!

I completely missed the annual Leonid meteor shower thanks to cloudy and cold conditions and a bout of insomnia that left me tossing and turning and eventually snoozing through my alarm.  I might be able to catch a few strays and stragglers this evening (after midnight if I’m really ambitious), but I think I’ll take out the telescope and zoom in on the Moon and Jupiter (and its moons) this evening.

And speaking of the moon, Sunday will be our next Blue Moon (follow this link to an explanation, definition and debate regarding the definition of ‘Blue Moon’).

Venus, Spica and Saturn visible before dawn Nov 2010
East before dawn, November 2010 (Image made by Starry Night)

If I manage a good night’s sleep, I may even wake early to watch Venus rise before the sun and hope to spy Saturn as well.

This will be my last weekend for stargazing for the foreseeable future.  It’s high time I contacted Meade for an RMA and shipped the telescope off for repairs (estimated to take five to six weeks to complete).  Since the weather is quickly chilling and producing more cloud cover, this may be the best time to get that reconditioning work done.

Either way, with or without a telescope, keep looking up!

Sunset, Sunrise, New Moon, Old Stars

With the return to normal time (sans daylight savings time), the commute home last night included a typical Midwestern autumn sunset.   Clear blue orange sky streaked with white vapor trails of the jets filled with people from the coasts who hop over the Heart of America and rarely pause to visit.   I kept my eye out for the waxing moon’s sliver, since the new moon occurred around midnight Saturday.  After the sun set I finally spied it, much higher in the sky than I anticipated.

Terry had dinner nearly ready when I returned from my errand to WalMart where I invested more money in Hallmark than I do the rest of the year combined.  Terry had prepared pan friend pork chops with some glazed carrots that were yummy.   I ate my sourdough as an appetizer, although three slices may have been a bit much.  We retired to the great room to watch the new episode of House, after which Terry entered his food coma and I read myself to a similar somnolent state.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I had forgotten to contact my father, who was on the road to Virginia.    My uncle had remembered to call his brother last night and confirmed he’d finally stopped forging east in Coventry, Virginia, only about three hours shy of their home.  I call him this morning during my commute to work and we chatted for a few minutes as he once again headed east into the sunrise over the mountains in Virginia.  I used the same sunrise to continue reading until the van arrived at work.

Another aspect of the change in time, I don’t see as many stars when I leave the house in the morning.  By 6:15, the eastern sky is already a pale yellow, and I can barely see Sirius or the stars in Orion’s Belt.  Some stratus clouds were also interfering with stargazing this morning.

Hunter’s Moon Hidden Behind Cloud Cover

And to think I was praising the beautiful fall weather yesterday.  Nothing lasts forever though.

I had hoped to take a few photos of the full Hunter’s Moon tonight via the telescope and digital camera.  But the clouds and a wicked cold have conspired to render me blind and chilled.  Perhaps if I wake up in the middle of the night (when the cold medicine wears off) the clouds would have rolled away to reveal a smiling dazzling moon.

Or not.

Either way, I’ll be back in a cold medicine induced coma within a half hour or so.

Sourdough Saturday Ends With Jumping Jupiter and Magnificent Moon

I woke up five minutes before my five o’clock alarm this morning.  Not unusual, except for it being a Saturday.  But I needed to hit the ground running if I was going to get all the bread baked today.

First thing, I pulled the sourdough crock out of the refrigerator to get it warmed up to room temperature.  Second, I quickly mixed up my favorite Honey Wheat bread recipe.   While waiting for the bread machine to mix, knead and rise that recipe (elapsed time ninety minutes), I started recording to DVD from the DVR the Belgian Grand Prix (since I’m five GPs behind and only three left for the 2010 season) .  I managed to read a few chapters of Cryoburn concurrently.

I shaped the Honey Wheat dough into a loaf and set it to rise for anther forty-five minutes. I took a short break to visit with friends for brunch at Santa Fe Depot.  Probably a good choice since the new IHOP in Lansing was overflowing at ten o’clock.  After a great visit, I rushed to the Leavenworth Post Office to mail off eight mooched books to various states in the lower forty-eight.   I also stopped at the Book Exchange in an attempt to trade some hardcover science fiction novels, but she declined my offerings stating they were currently overstocked with hardcovers.

I returned home, completed my BookMooch and BookCrossing data updates and posted three of the hardcovers to my BookMooch inventory, one of which has already been mooched.

Now the sourdough starter was ready, all bubbly and soury.  I modified my Rustic Sourdough bread recipe to work in a bread machine on the dough cycle.  My modifications included the following:

1 cup “fed” sourdough starter
1 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast

This reduces the original recipe to a single loaf variation and rather than shaping a traditional round or oval loaf, I used a regular bread pan and scored it like you would a split top loaf.

After I got the Rustic Sourdough into the bread machine, I immediately started the Rosemary Sourdough recipe in the Kitchenaid stand mixer.  This recipe should not be over mixed nor kneaded, so it’s a very sticky mess when you scrape it into a glass bowl (generously coated with cooking spray) and covered with clear plastic wrap.  Let rise for ninety minutes or more until doubled in size.

The Sourdoughs kept me busy all afternoon.  I was able to start another, final loaf before three o’clock, which was one of my family’s favorites: Honey Wheat Black Bread.  I shaped it into a braid and waited for it to rise.

With the last loaf still cooling on the rack, I rushed down to Bonner Springs to slip into the KC Ren Fest just before it closed.  I have a collection of mugs, steins and goblets going back to 1988.  The person at the Will Call window was kind enough to let me into the festival for a few minutes to buy a mug and a goblet.  Pickings were slim (this being the last weekend of the festival), but I found a goblet and a stein I liked and quickly returned home.

I was surprised to see my dad’s car parked in the driveway as I thought I had told him to call me if he was going to stop by to partake in some star gazing this evening.  Apparently, he arrived at the house just minutes after I left for Bonner Springs.

We waited for the sun to set and started setting up the the telescope in the great room in a polar mount orientation.  We moved the equipment out front to the driveway, since Jupiter is not visible from my backyard until around ten o’clock.  We determined the sidereal tracking in polar mount worked well and kept Jupiter and it’s three visible moons centered for an hour or so.  Feeling confident, we attached the Pentax K100D to attempt a better photo shoot of Jupiter, but quickly realized the weight of the camera was too much for the motors of the telescope.  We removed the camera and went back to viewing Jupiter with various eye pieces and barlowes of varying magnifications.

Just before dad was leaving and as we were contemplating putting the equipment back in the great room, the moon (more than half full now) peaked out from behind the pin oak in my side yard (which also shields the driveway from the annoying streetlight planted next to the stop sign in my side yard at the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley.  We reoriented the telescope to the moon and began viewing it with various eye pieces.  We also tried the moon filter, which helped tone down the incredible brightness funneled through the telescope into our eyes.

After a few minutes of moon gazing, we packed up the equipment and returned it to the great room.  We said our good nights and I’m grateful to be off my feet finally.  My knees have had enough today.

Sunday will be easier since I only need to make one more loaf (possibly two) and then figure out how to transport six loaves to work via the vanpool without smushing any of them.

Friday Night at the Empty Nest

I stopped by Dillons on the way home for some fresh rosemary and pizza fixings.  I found the latter, but not the former, so had to buy rosemay in a spice jar.  Sigh.  I still made it home by 5:30 or so.

Terry started working on a pizza and I started working on bread production.  I set the sourdough starter out to warm up to room temperature.  Then I reviewed my White Sandwich Bread recipe, setting out a stick of butter to also warm up to room temperature.   I got all the ingredients into the bread machine (dough cycle) before six o’clock.  Since it takes about three hours from start to finish, I could be done by nine o’clock.

The pizza turned out wonderful and we decided to watch a couple of new episodes of Mythbusters – ‘Hair of the Dog’ and featuring the Stormchasers and surviving tornado-like winds in a vehicle or, if you’re Jamie Hyneman, an aerodynamic tent he engineered, constructed and tested in winds up to 180 mph.  I should check the Patent Office to see if he filed an application on that idea.

During the second episode of Mythbusters, I setup the telescope with the camera attached because the early evening was perfect for viewing the moon – clear and no wind.  I took several photos of the moon using various settings on the camera but I’m not sure the results were noticably different.  Click here to see for yourself.

I removed the camera from the telescpe and tried nearly all the eyepiece lenses in my case, down to a 4 mm one focused on the terminus on the moon.  Outstanding clarity and magnification.  On Jupiter, I got down to a 9 mm, but without putting the telescope in sidereal tracking mode, the image of Jupiter only stayed ‘on screen’ for a couple of seconds.

I completely forgot about my rising bread loaf so I got behind schedule by about 30-45 minutes; even so, the bread came out of the over looking and smelling wonderful.  I brought the telescope back in for the night and headed up to bed.

I woke back up at eleven o’clock because I’d forgotten to start a process at work that I wanted to run over the weekend.  I got that going and then cracked open a newly released book I pre-ordered from Barnes & Noble in late September:  Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (a long awaited installment in the Vorkosigan Saga).  I got to page seven before I fell asleep.   It’s very good, but I was very tired.

 

First Attempt at Amateur Astronomical Telescopic Digital Photography

Waxing Moon
Moon Early Evening 13 Oct 2010

My first photographic effort using the Meade ETX90 and the Pentax K100D (on a two second delay shutter in an attempt to prevent blurring and shaking of the telescope) is above.  I chose the moon, because it’s large, bright and easy to focus and doesn’t necessarily need to be tracked.  I did not use the Autostar to track and sync the moon while taking both of these photos.

Waxing Moon (1/4 to 1/3 full)
Early Evening 13 Oct 2010 Moon (better focused)

I like the second moon photo (above) the best of the half dozen or so shots I took.

Jupiter Early Evening 13 October 2010

My efforts attempting to focus and track Jupiter did not bear good fruit.  Of the handful of photos I took, the one above is the best of the bunch.

That’s all the photographic practice I’ll get this evening.  I need to devise a counterweight for the telescope’s tube so the camera doesn’t pull ‘up’ the altitude.