Visit the kelpforest....

My kids and I went outside just after sunset, because of a beautiful pink sky in the west, and hung out in the front yard for awhile, watching the stars slowly come out. Sometimes we'd notice a tiny glowing speck, but watch it for a few minutes before realizing it was a very high flying jet. The low flying ones, on their approach to Long Beach or John Wayne airport, made good subjects for Gareth to test out the binoculars he got for his birthday. When we noticed one appear we'd all try to point them out to each other; for me this required putting my head on their level and pointing so they could sight along my arm.

Sometimes, your eyes feel a little weird because you notice faint stars in the corner of your eye that disappear when you try to look directly at them. I've read this is because you have more light sensitive rod cells in the part of your retina covering peripheral vision than in the center, where there are more of the color sensitive cone cells that we use in the daytime. Or I'm just imagining them because I'm getting a crick in my neck from looking straight up, and my eyes are straining to see stars in a city sky full of light pollution from the street lights and the neighbor across the street's garish light display, and lots of wispy cirrus clouds besides.

At moonrise, we can see the disk is full tonight, and as she rises towards the power lines behind our house, I can see a bright speck to the lower right of it. As first I think I can see the space between the star and the planet growing, but as the pair rise farther, I see they are maintaining the same distance; the star is within the haze around the moon formed by the high clouds. Gareth check them out though the binoculars, and then we all take a look. I gaze straight up again and see a bright spot moving quickly; it doesn't look like a plane, but is moving steadily until it goes behind our tree and I lose sight of it. I surmise it must be a satellite; I haven't seen one in years.

Now I'm curious, and head indoors to look up (in a different sense) what we've been looking at. Earth & Sky tells us tonight the star near the moon is not a star but a planet; Mars, in fact, and The God of War will be accompnying the Moon all night long. Tomorrow, our planet and Mars will be in opposition- the Earth will be directly between the Sun and Mars, at its closest point for two years. If you have a good telescope/camera, it's supposed to be an excellent night for photographing the Red Planet - my camera isn't that great, so I guess I have to wait for the next close approach.

The Farmer's Almanac says that this full moon is the Full Cold Moon, or the Full Long Nights Moon, the full moon closest to the Winter Solstice, (or Yule).

Ah well, time to think of dinner and wrapping some presents; maybe we'll go out again later, to catch Saturn rising.

Amazing Space - nifty movie on sky events in December