Observer's Log

Welcome to Spring dear and devoted reader of the Observer's Blog. Here's to a clear and dark-sky future in a clearing in the woods near you. Friday night I was lucky enough to hike the eight-mile trail loop at Goose Creek State Park under a full Moon. No headlamp was necessary along the way.

Once again I find myself on an 8-mile hike in the middle of the night at Goose Creek State Park. The deer are out and about and snorting at me when they determine I'm lurking too close. The moon during this trip is at nearly first quarter and is bright enough for me to hike without my headlamp, two nights in a row. Mars and Saturn are bright and easy to find. I can see them poking in and out of the trees without even having to look for them.

I'm sorry to report that I did NOT see any UFO's while observing in the field tonight. You would think that for someone who spends as ungodly an amount of time looking up in the sky as I do that I might catch a glimpse of one of them buggers ever once in a while. But, alas, dear reader of the Observer's Blog, there were none tonight and have never been any as far my eyes are concerned. That's not to say, of course, that they don't exist. They probably do. They probably come out as soon as I go back in. Who knows? Maybe they're sneaky.

 Check this out
....And this video.

Pick a spot..

Last night I headed for the field near my house to do a little observing with the binoculars. As I was panning the sky I started thinking about the mythology of the constellations and the stories of how certain stars were placed in the sky by the gods.

Castor and Pollux, the twins in Gemini, both voyaged as Argonauts to search for the Golden Fleece and fought in the Trojan War. When Castor died, as the story goes, Pollux was so distraught that he begged Jupiter to reunite them. Jupiter complied by giving them a place in the heavens.

This made me wonder where I would like to be if I were placed in the heavens as a star and, after much thought, realized it would not be an easy decision to make.

Perhaps I could be situated where the Orion Nebula or the great Andromeda Galaxy filled the entire nighttime sky nearby. It would probably take a few billion years to get over that view.