Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
Two Comets on a Moonlit Morning
http://tomjmartinez.blogspot.com/2013/11/two-comets-on-moonlit-morning.html
Sharing fellow ASKC member and exceptional astrophotographer Tom Martinez latest Comet Ison photo from earlier this week at Powell Observatory.
Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon
Just as I was settling down and thinking about making my morning cup of tea, I thought I’d check the eastern sky one last time (see my earlier post about cloud cover on the wrong half of the sky). Surprise! The clouds disappeared, probably due to the wind advisory we’re still under. I could barely see the star Spica just breaking through the bare limbs of my neighbor’s trees.
I went back inside and grabbed my binoculars. I then headed to one of my east-facing second floor bedrooms. Thanks to my kids, the window in the south room has no screen so I can open it and have a clear view above my neighbor’s rooftops.
I work up at 4:11 a.m. (Central Time) this morning. It’s a Sunday. Why am I up so early? I have no idea.
Since I was up early, I checked my Sky Safari app on my smartphone to see when Comet Ison would rise. I was in luck. It was scheduled to rise at 4:22, a few minutes before the star Spica.
I’m an early riser. I’m always up before the sun. Some mornings, like this morning, I wake up to obscured skies, clouds reflecting the ruddy golden light of Kansas City in the southeast from my bedroom window.