Chelyabinsk Event

The headliner on Friday in real-estate crazy Vancouver...something about Donald Trump and his hair coming to town?...

In other news...A bus-sized space rock burned and boomed across the early morning sky over Chelyabinsk, population one million. For a few quick heartbeats, the meteor blazed brighter than the sun. Had it struck the earth it might've gone bang equal to 20 Hiroshimas.

The meteor air-burst perhaps 30 miles high. The shockwave damaged 3000 buildings in Chelyabinsk, shattered countless windows. 1100 people were injured, mostly by flying glass. People had rushed to windows to see...whatever it was...blazing brighter than the sun.

It's winter in Chelyabinsk. Minus-7 Celsius early Saturday morning. Shattered windows means for some folks it's as wintry cold inside as out. Emergency repairs are underway. Naturally.

One scary nugget worth paying attention to: a post-event statement blurted by one Russian nationalist, absolving the indifferent sky of any blame, and attributing Friday morning in Chelyabinsk to an American weapons test. Seriously.

And...De Donald's gonna build his tower in my Vancouver... .

And Now for a Completely Different Point of View

Missed the Cosmic Bus

Well...Heh, stopped myself there...before I could type at least.

At least feels like I'd be making an excuse. I don't wanna make excuses, not no more. Excuses stop me. Not today, excuses didn't...yes, at least. I wrote for Aryst0krat's The Night Sky on Protag, finally. I'd wanted to, longer than I can remember now.

Since Thursday, I'd been fiddling with whatever it was gonna be, my moment's scribbled note about that pre-dawn look out the bedroom window, and marveling at moon, Jupiter, and Orion, all together close in the deep blue sky.

My fiddling ruined any lively spontaneity which might have come. My look out the window could've been a pre-breakfast texting to the blog. Or quick posting later Thursday, to the blog from work. Even something rushed out Friday night, my workweek done. No. Instead, Saturday morn...I'm stopping myself re-hashing here all that's in Missed the Cosmic Bus, my add to The Night Sky...instead, I chucked out the wordy over-blown mess.

Instead, I wrote down the truth of my ruinous fiddling these past three mornings. Worked it up Saturday morn. Didn't overdo it. Didn't contemplate it 'til the distant someday the leftover universe crunches in.

I actually posted it after the first clean read-through. And didn't take myself too seriously, either. That's hopeful, I'd say. A stab at reclaiming my ability to go with the moment.

NASA's Twin Spacecraft on Final Approach for Moon Orbit

NASA's Twin Spacecraft on Final Approach for Moon Orbit

GRAIL-A is just now slipping into lunar orbit.

GRAIL-B will be arriving tomorrow, New Year's Day, about 2 pm PST.

Then the fun begins. Studying the Moon inside and out. This is simply wonderful stuff.

It's making me want to work on Revisitor. It'll come. Other writing projects are more pressing.

O' If I had an Extra Kidney

Among current writing projects I'm hoping to return to, now the weekend's here at last, Saturday groceries gotten, and Christmas gift-hunting done, but for the bills to come, there's Revisitor. A spacey tale. Only the central character doesn't know it at first. It's being re-worked.

Awesome and inspiring spacey photos, such as those from HubbleSite, transport me to a place perfect for pre-writing sci-fi of the spacey kind. I've already saved to the story-inspiring screensaver one spectacular pic released by HubbleSite this week, of nebula Sharpless 2-106, I saw first as a thrilling little video modeling the nebula in 3-D. Shrouded in red glowing dust and gas, and afire inside, it really resembles a nest of stars. Here, stars are born.

Actually, there's one central fierce star firing up the heart of this blue beauty. Also, hundreds of brown dwarf stars, too small to turn on and shine, and surely other stellar curiosities I'd gladly take a long break from the job to go see.

I'd pack extra lunches, of course. And the Thermos. Set the email auto-reply at work...Will be away for a couple thousand light years. And head out immediately.

Only the ship's in the shop, awaiting a drive doohickey, from outta town, as Fred my mechanic put it via telepathy. Ship would also need better shields anyway. Shields aren't cheap, everybody knows that. I'd have to sell another kidney. Left one hasn't grown back yet. So, that's that. I should probably just get a new ship.

Early to Rise...Nuthin' t'see

The less said about the entire workweek, and yesterday...night especially, the better. So, to this Saturday morn!

It's cloudy. That's keeping me indoors and tapping this over the keyboard. Somewhere, other than Vancouver, there's a total lunar eclipse happening. Ah well. Any lunar eclipse is only the good Earth passing between sun and moon, anyway. Just a small wow event for the skywatchers.

Right right, I'm a skywatcher. When local skies cooperate.

I'll go visit skywatcher sites around the web later. Do my oohing-aahing then. Have a list of Saturday doings to get at first. And early. I might as well get to the chores, seeing as there isn't anything wow to see...over in the west...as the sun begins to rise in the east.

Perseids...or SpaceWeather Radio

Perseids meteor shower is peaking. The BEST night sky show, most years. Fortified by thermos o'tea, I've lounged in rooftop lawn chair, oooh'd and aaah'd into many a dawn.

Most years. Tonight, I'll need the moon lotion. Until the clouds roll over. Just about Go time, if Environment Canada's oracles have seen it right. Shootin' star viewing is further likely to be hampered by precipitation pattering upon the eye before dawn Sunday.

Ah well. There's always SpaceWeather Radio. An audio stream off the U.S.A.F. Space Surveillance Radar in Texas. Eerie radar pings and echoes off...whatever happens to whiz overhead.

SuperMoon'd

It was a supermoon earlier Saturday night, magnified even larger at moonrise through the thicker lens of Earth's atmosphere above the eastern horizon.

It's 1:30 Sunday morning. Bars and clubs are letting out. Wildlife howls under the moon. Under lamplight.

HubbleSite's Link Badge Woohoo!

It works...it works...it worrrks!
Fingers can't keep up and tap it down fast enough...just how gleeful I'm feeling.
Figuring the worst that might happen is the link badge doesn't work, so then I'll just remove it, I went ahead and pasted my little html poem into the blog layout using another of those handy html gadgets intended for the purpose.

As I did last week, plugging in the Protagonize link. In fact, that little exercise prepared me for this.

Already had the html string from HubbleSite for the link badge image source. And HubbleSite's url: the address to link to. And, thanks to Nick, the full beautiful html poem behind the Protag link to work from as example.

Horn'ed Moon and Venus

Horn'ed god and the Huntress...It's sparking something in my head. Partners. Wheeling thru the night. The forest, of course. The hunt. Should be chasing each other. She's no sighing maiden considering a bold guy's advances — she's a huntress — she wants him, too. Equals, then. Tension? A game — between equals — neither admitting interest in the hunt. Enuf to'ing and fro'ing — him chasing her and her chasing him. Then the arrival at mutual understanding. Y'know, maybe some 3rd party POV...some average somebody, a peasant, awed or not, witness to this game.

I didn't figure this pic of the crescent moon and Venus in very close conjunction last night would come out at all. Grabbed thru a window — and time only to disable the camera's flash — before the pair danced down behind that winterbare chestnut on the corner. And before they vanished into the wash of the streetlights. Wanted to record something of that wondrous dance in the night.

I used to have time for the night sky. Used to make time, yeah. Still look up. Some of these freezing cold clear nights, as I ride bike home after work. Late enuf that the stars are out. Tip my eyes up from my patch of headlight on black road. Orion...up there early in the southeast. Wailing jets in their blazing landing lights swooping overhead toward the north runway.

Remembering. Over a decade ago, now. Standing younger me in the dark center of a city park. Seeing thru binocs inherited from my Dad. Comet Hale-Bopp glorious with two tails high in the winter night!

Ohhh, had I then even this basic digital camera. Just imagine the poor quality pix I might post!