Sliver Moon XLVII
It’s a new record for delay in a sliver moon report! The sliver moon window will open again on Friday, and yet I’m only now recording last month’s sliver moon sighting.
I’ve seen many a sliver moon since I began this journal, but I believe this is the first one that I sighted from an airplane (and only from an airplane). We’re at the time of year when evening sliver moons should be easy-peasy to sight, the Ecliptic being so close to vertical after sunset; but the whole trick is that too view a sliver moon in the sky, no matter how far above the horizon, it is necessary to have visibility above a mile or two above ground level-and that’s one thing we’ve had over a total of about four hours since last October. No wonder our nighttime temperatures have risen so much in the last couple of decades-it’s solid overcast all night long around here, all the time.
At sunset on February 12 I was peering out the right-side window of a Boeing 737 on the Hopkins Airport tarmac, wondering at the near absence of clouds above. Only a soaring zigzag of cirrus sullied the western horizon. I knew where to look for the two-day sliver moon, but I couldn’t spy it anywhere. Then I realized I was looking too low, and twisted my neck around to get a view straight up. In the upper edge of the window I could see a misshapen, glowing sickle I knew was the sliver moon. Did that count as an official sliver-moon sighting?, I wondered. I mean, photons from the sliver moon fell on my retinas, but I didn’t really see it in the sense that it formed a pleasant image in my mind. Also, I’d nearly slipped a disc trying to look upward enough; a real sliver-moon viewing shouldn’t cause that much pain.
Figured I’d have a better chance a while later, en route, as the sliver moon slipped nearer the horizon. Then realized I was sitting on the north side of the plane during our hop to Chicago. Eeps.
Fortunately, we angled south for a couple of minutes while getting lined up on the approach path, and I was rewarded with a crystal-clear Cheshire Cat moon in a midnight-blue sky. Below, a layer of stratus clouds hugged the earth so closely that it must almost have looked like fog from ground level. I imagine that’s what home has looked like for the last four months or so.
I’ve seen many a sliver moon since I began this journal, but I believe this is the first one that I sighted from an airplane (and only from an airplane). We’re at the time of year when evening sliver moons should be easy-peasy to sight, the Ecliptic being so close to vertical after sunset; but the whole trick is that too view a sliver moon in the sky, no matter how far above the horizon, it is necessary to have visibility above a mile or two above ground level-and that’s one thing we’ve had over a total of about four hours since last October. No wonder our nighttime temperatures have risen so much in the last couple of decades-it’s solid overcast all night long around here, all the time.
At sunset on February 12 I was peering out the right-side window of a Boeing 737 on the Hopkins Airport tarmac, wondering at the near absence of clouds above. Only a soaring zigzag of cirrus sullied the western horizon. I knew where to look for the two-day sliver moon, but I couldn’t spy it anywhere. Then I realized I was looking too low, and twisted my neck around to get a view straight up. In the upper edge of the window I could see a misshapen, glowing sickle I knew was the sliver moon. Did that count as an official sliver-moon sighting?, I wondered. I mean, photons from the sliver moon fell on my retinas, but I didn’t really see it in the sense that it formed a pleasant image in my mind. Also, I’d nearly slipped a disc trying to look upward enough; a real sliver-moon viewing shouldn’t cause that much pain.
Figured I’d have a better chance a while later, en route, as the sliver moon slipped nearer the horizon. Then realized I was sitting on the north side of the plane during our hop to Chicago. Eeps.
Fortunately, we angled south for a couple of minutes while getting lined up on the approach path, and I was rewarded with a crystal-clear Cheshire Cat moon in a midnight-blue sky. Below, a layer of stratus clouds hugged the earth so closely that it must almost have looked like fog from ground level. I imagine that’s what home has looked like for the last four months or so.