hellogoodbye

[annburlingham]

the second shooting star made me laugh. it flared quickly, whoosh!, leaving me an absurd desire to say hello, lost as if trying to catch the attention of one person in a flood of people leaving a train station. gone. swift and friendly and intent on its own business. hellogoodbye

Comments

[post_ecdysis]

Here is a good star map. I wonder if you happened to see the International Space Station too; my father was very excited that it was passing over the Finger Lakes this evening. I don't believe that you'll have much luck seeing Orion in the summertime.

Personally, I'm more surprised that we are still using the constellations passed down from antiquity. Is it the only rational way to partition the night sky, or are we just too distracted to derive our own meanings? If I were some corporate marketing director, I'd think I would want to find and champion my company's logo as a neo-constellation. (Ah, the Golden Arches are very visible tonight, and if you look on the horizon, you can see the Swoosh!)

[auntieruth]

Some day, perhaps, if we ever manage to colonize a planet around another star, we'll have to make up brand new ones.

I want to name one "Gidget."

[rsc]

Here is a good star map.

Oh, yes, I love that site. I especially like the fact that you can control what it displays. I used it to print out a bunch of maps to take with me to New Zealand in March so I could tell what I was seeing.

And, adjusting the time. it bears out what I was pretty sure of, namely that there was no way annburlingham was going to find Orion at around midnight in mid-August.

Orion

[bibliofile]

No, he's up pretty close to dawn at this time of year.

But yay for people seeing meteors! Such better weather in this hemisphere than, say, the Geminids (December, I think).

[rsc]

I spent a little time on our lawn last night watching for meteors, of which I saw maybe half a dozen in half an hour or so (fewer than I was hoping for). I might have done better later at night (I came in about 12:45), and the patch of sky I can actually see gets smaller every year as the trees grow higher and broader.

I also saw what I'm pretty sure was a skunk crossing the lawn, right past the chair I was reclining in. I kept very still, not wishing to alarm it.