Earth and Sky

The back of our property ends at a little arroyo. If I walk along that little dry creek bed, I’ll quickly come to a larger arroyo. I can follow its sandy trails for miles only occasionally coming up to the road to cross into the next section. It’s not bad to walk along the gravel roads, but the arroyo’s park-like atmosphere is better. The main downside is all the sand that ends up in my shoes.

The arroyo as it meets a cross-street. Clearly, sometimes there’s a lot of water in here.

And then there’s the sky. Last Saturday evening Robert and I took an hour or so away from unpacking and such to try out the Oberwerk binoculars I mentioned earlier and to scan the sky for Geminid meteors. For the second purpose, I had purchased a zero-gravity lawn chair. With three layers of clothing on my torso and a blanket, I laid back in the chair perfectly positioned to see streaks of light in the sky. Over the course of a half hour I saw at least ten, some for longer than a second or two. If compared to fireworks, they aren’t impressive. But the experience is more meditative and, in my easy chair, relaxing. Still, my tolerance is limited even with only a light breeze.

The binoculars are more compelling. We first trained them on the Pleiades, an open star cluster that fills the field of view at 25x, each star distinct. Here I couldn’t quite see the nebulae. Next we turned to Orion’s sword and the nebula cloud was clear and bright, while not as colorful as what you often see in photographs it was something closer to what you see in the above link. Only the brightest curve of the cloud was visible, but it was a delight to be able to use both eyes and look at it like it was next to me.

Finally, I pointed towards Jupiter for the best of the evening. Not only could I see the unmistakable planet, but also three of its moons. Usually through a telescope I feel like I’m half guessing that I see something as it comes in and out of view while I try to line my eye up just right. With two eyes I had little doubt of what I was seeing, three moons all in a plane around a bright three-dimensional sphere.

The new moon is tomorrow and I hope we’re able to get the equipment out this weekend, but there’s a lot going on with the holidays approaching. Merry Christmas and thanks for reading.