winter solstice eve photos

Midwinter solstice day is a rainy one here: no sunrise gap or cloud silver lining! It doesn’t really matter if you’re just appreciating the views at their most ideal sunrise times for mistYmuse. It only matters if you’ve just got this day to appreciate them, and in the old days particularly if you’ve got a temple built for such days, where the sun would enter a passageway after rising/setting on a solstice or equinox.

Yesterday was much better than expected, with the sun seeming to explode into light like a supernova in space or a lighthouse on Earth. Funnily enough, I’d been discussing lighthouses the previous day on another site (Willow Croft), and had been thinking the revolving light is my favourite part of them. Yesterday’s sunrise light wasn’t revolving, but its looks are similar.

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The sky also cleared in the evening so the conjunction was visible. It was good to see for history, but wasn’t as spectacular as earlier in the year for me, when it was nearer, bigger and brighter. Mars is quite sparkly now overhead, while the Orion constellation is also big and bright.

Anyway, midwinter is mostly a celebration of endurance and passing, that winter is half over, and it will start getting lighter now. I hope the first month of mistYmuse has helped you reach this point happily, and that you can now look forward to spring thinking it isn’t too far away, with Christmas timed well to celebrate the end of the first half.

Planets race tonight and year

Jupiter and Saturn visibility has travelled across the southern sky over the year, westward from south-east to middle now: that’s because they’re on the ‘outside lane’ and we’re overtaking on the inside. In contrast to our year (365 days; time measurement created by humanity of course) orbit it takes Jupiter 11.86 years to orbit the sun, and Saturn 29.50, so they are not always seen close together like that; Jupiter will ‘race’ ahead of Saturn.

They also look like they’re travelling westwards each night, but that’s because of our planetary spin. In contrast, Venus is on our inside, taking only 224 ‘days’ to orbit the sun, so is racing ahead, looking as if it’s travelling eastward on our horizon over the year.

It was Galileo’s observations of the full planetary phases of Venus in 1610 that determined planets orbit the sun, rather than Earth.

Venus still looks as if it’s travelling west through the night though, because that’s defined by our planetary spin. As Jupiter lags behind us we see it earlier as our planet twists around anti-clockwise:

Jupiter 12.49 (November 5th) to 11.07 (December 5th)
As Venus races ahead, we see it later:
Venus 3.54 (November 5th) to 5.32 (December 5th)

Eventually, Venus will go out of sight behind the sun, reappearing in our evening as it catches up with us again. This year (2020), space.com writes Venus was in our: Evenings in the western sky at dusk from January 1st to May 24th; mornings in the eastern sky at dawn from June 13 to Dec. 31.

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/
https://www.timeanddate.com

Travelling on Planet Earth.

DAILY SPIN: THE SUN REMAINS THE SAME
[double play of words: the first affectionately parodying a newspaper, while the second paraphrases Led Zeppelin’s album, The Song Remains the Same]

If you watch another planet or two (good sight of Jupiter and Saturn in the southern sky with the moon again last night) through a window you can see our movement: as the planets seem to slowly travel across the window before leaving sight.

Earth’s spin is the same reason for our daily view of the sun. The sun remains the same through time though, as we orbit it,

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The other planets are also orbiting it, so their positions in ‘our night sky’ change. We are on the ‘inside lane’ of Jupiter and Saturn, so will race ahead soon, and they won’t be in our ‘outside lane’ vison.

Our daily/nightly sight of the moon is different, because it orbits us.

End of Days

Leaving days, we leave our planet’s spin influence.

The seasons are not because of our planet’s spin. They are because of our Earth’s rigid 23.4 axis tilt, which means that as we orbit the sun over the course of our year, each north-south hemisphere has half a year pointing towards the sun and then space, or just out to space.

Our planet’s spin still gives both hemispheres day and night, although there is more/less depending on where we are in the orbit (year). Now, the northern hemisphere is pointing more and more to space, so we will have more and more darkness; the southern is pointing more and more towards the sun, so it will have more light.

I hope the above combination of artistic imagination and writing explanation can be useful to your enjoyment of the night sky. I’ve been passively learning about it all my life, but my writing and researching over the last fifteen years made me more active. The planetstoday and timeanddate websites have recently been very useful in giving me a clear image of our solar system and its timings.

The above is the kind of knowledge I wanted 11 years ago when I started this website. That it has taken this long shows that you can’t rush these kinds of things, and knowledge is not always available; or not available in the style you need. In another 11 years we will know much more, and one day we may know how our universe works the way we today know how our solar system does.

Moonday Poem for Pagans

Grilled tomato smoke
wafted greyer than air
as sunlight broke
through window to evoke
before Venus rose
a female soprano voice
emitted from the TV
triggering thought energy
in my brain synergy
the power of three…

to be remembered
half the day later
after seeing Venus
now bright in night
clear as day, as they did say
above new crescent moon.

27 Jan. The Moon returns to the evening sky and appears just 6^o from brilliant Venus in the west after sunset. Today, the planet Neptune is less than 0.25 degrees north of Venus. If you have a telescope, try to see these two worlds in a single field of view. As January ends, Venus rises nearly 3.5 hours after the Sun and reaches well above the western horizon at sunset. Other than the Moon or Sun, it’s the brightest thing in the sky.

The Night Sky This Month

If you liked that poem you’ll probably love some in this:

The Observable Universe may be One Amazing Space among Many

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, science expert at the Greenygrey. It’s hard to imagine, but the night-sky you see only contains a miniscule amount of what is actually in space around us. This was emphasised by a photo in an article on the Matador Network.

Amount of Galaxies in Space is Astounding

The article about telescopes by Hal Amen featured an image by the Hubble telescope showing an area in space a tenth the diameter of the full moon as we see it from Earth. They found 10,000 galaxies in the image. If that random part of space is typical, then there are 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way galaxy is one amongst billions, as our sun is one star amongst billions and our planet one amongst billions; with many exo-planets and moons thought to be ideal for harbouring life. This image shows our sun’s position in our galaxy:

Image from the Atlas of the Universe website.

Beyond the Observable Universe

Although our brains and technology have obviously not seen what is beyond the observable universe, scientists have some theories. Martin Rees believes that we may be one universe among many. He proposed this in an article on the Prospect website, which began and ended with these paragraphs:

An astonishing concept has entered mainstream cosmological thought: physical reality could be hugely more extensive than the patch of space and time traditionally called “the universe.” We’ve learnt that we live in a solar system that is just one planetary system among billions, in one galaxy among billions. But there are signs that a further Copernican demotion confronts us. The entire panorama that astronomers can observe could be a tiny part of the aftermath of our Big Bang, which is itself just one bang among a potentially infinite ensemble. In this grander perspective, what we’ve traditionally called the laws of nature may be no more than parochial bylaws—local manifestations of “bedrock” laws that must be sought at a still deeper level.

Our cosmic environment could be richly textured, but on scales so vast that our purview is restricted to a tiny fragment. We’re not directly aware of the big picture, any more than a plankton whose universe is a litre of water would be aware of the world’s topography and biosphere. It is sensible for cosmologists to start off by exploring the simplest models. But there is no more reason to expect simplicity on the grandest scale than in the terrestrial environment, where intricate complexity prevails. It is exhilarating that this wonderful concept is now within the scope of scientific enquiry.

Venus and Jupiter Over the Moon again Tonight

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, cosmology expert at the Greenygrey.

One big space story today. A month after Marc Latham’s Night Sky poem, a
Yahoo article reports that Venus and Jupiter are set to closely meet again over the moon in the next couple of northern hemisphere night skies.

Venus and Jupiter Over the Moon again Tonight

A month after the Valentine Night Sky poem, Venus and Jupiter are set to closely meet again over the moon in the next couple of northern hemisphere night skies.

Yahoo article

City Mirrors Sky When You Look From Up on High

Image via Wikipedia

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem looks up and down as the light leaves the Earth with the sun, and describes the mirror effect that can emerge as city lights are turned on at the same time that stars start to sparkle in the sky.

Between City and Sky, Let Your Mind Fly

in nocturnal sky
stars shine eternally
in milky way zodiac signs
looking like a climbing frame

sunset on plateau ridge

city streets resemble landing strips
for ancient gods or aliens
never embering neon
on valley floor