I Wish I Was The Moon (Tonight)

    

      

#136

12.22.10

      

I Wish I Was The Moon - Neko Case

               

My very first blog entry on 01.01.10 was the Blue Moon of the new year, 2010; and I posted pics of the Wolf Moon of 2010 on 01.30.10.  Obviously I never tire of gazing at the Moon.
    
 Last night I spent several hours looking at the stars, Venus, and the last Full Moon of 2010 through my son's telescope.  At the time I was listening to Sigur Rós's classic album Agaetis Byrjun, but this lovely song by Neko Case came to mind even then.  

              

Clearly these photos won't make National Geographic's glossy pages; but to shoot them with a 2 megapixel iPhone camera is something I'm proud of, just the same.  I think these photos are better than those taken earlier in the year, and I'm just kicking myself that I could not get a good photo of the lunar eclipse one evening prior.
  
This blog entry is in honor of one of my all-time favorite human beings, who just happens to be a fellow admirer of all things Lunar: J.Rasmussen.

         

   

   

    

cce

          

Sea Sun: Winter Solstice 2010

    

      

#135

12.21.10

      

Hafsól - Sigur Rós

       

The past 24 hours have been stunning from an astronomical perspective.  
   
Last night we stayed up late at the Candlehouse Observatory to catch the spectacular lunar eclipse.  Lunar eclipses aren't necessarily rare (at least two per year)... but this one coincided with Winter Solstice, and that is quite rare.  The last time it occurred was 1638!  But I'm sure you've all heard that on your radio and  television news programming by now.
              
I had hoped to devote a whole blog entry to the event, but just couldn't get a good picture with the iPhone camera and telescope until the eclipse was nearly complete.  There is an odd curvature to my shot, the shadow looks concave instead of convex... and I can't explain why it looks like that.  It didn't look like that with our eyeballs through the telescope.
      
Hopefully many of you got to see the eclipse wherever you live, too.
     

     
The other reason these past 24 hours has been so significant everywhere, and perhaps even more so here in Alaska, is that this is Winter Solstice - the shortest period of daylight for the year. 
   

For Anchorage Alaskans that means Sunrise occurred at 10:12 a.m., and Sunset was at 3:43 p.m.  In case your calculator or slide rule isn't handy, I'll let you know that equates to 5 hours, 31 minutes of Daylight.  But please don't feel sorry for us; I think those of us who choose to live and thrive in Alaska really enjoy the long Winter nights... but we also look forward with great anticipation to those long Summer nights (19 hours, 22 minutes in case you were wondering).
 

The featured photo above was shot at 3:41 p.m. just before Sunset; and the following photo was shot at 3:44 p.m., just after the Sun dipped below the horizon.  It was a balmy 1 degree above zero.
 

  

I intended to get some good Sunrise pics for the blog this morning; but we were downtown running errands (read: breakfast at Snow City Cafe), and missed it.  So I snapped a few pics from the car as we drove home, as the Sun came up over the Chugach Mountains.  I include the photo showing the dashboard to show the time and temperature (11:05 a.m. and 3 degrees above zero).  Forgive the worse-than-usual quality of the pics; they were taking as we drove at a normal clip.
  

  

  

  

I'll add a few photos I took at 3:40, 3:41, 3:42, 3:43, and 3:44 p.m. tonight with my Canon Xsi to show the Winter Solstice Sun dip into the Sea.  That frozen mass of water beyond the trees is the Cook Inlet.  It doesn't show up as well, obviously, in the iPhone shots above, but you can see the sea ice pretty well here.
  

  

  

  

  

  

Hopefully you've enjoyed the soundtrack to today's blog entry.  Sigur Rós is one of my personal favorite bands of all time.  Their name comes from the younger sister of one of the band members "Victory Rose".  They are from Iceland, and have an ethereal sound that could be a soundtrack to Me, lost and floating in space.  

They use EBows (electromagnetic devices to make their guitar and bass strings vibrate instead of actually strumming them, which gives the instruments a sound more akin to violins or cellos), and then they actually use stringed bows to play their electric instruments, too.  In this song, Hafsól, they  use drum sticks to play the bass guitar.  

My understanding is that Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood et al. of Radiohead "discovered" Sigur Rós and invited them along on their concert tours as an opening act.  Yet one more reason to be grateful to Radiohead!
  
The song is in Icelandic, and the English translation of the title is Sea Sun.  I'll post the lyrics translated to English.  An amazing song by an amazing band.
       

Behind a vessel of clouds, a sun wakes up from its lethargy
Refreshes itself with some little raindrops
Plays with the hot flames of the fire
Makes rainbows

  

cce
       

North Pole Man

    

    

#134

12.20.10

    

North Pole Man - Over The Rhine 

I keep expecting the Tiffstress to sing this to me when I come in from snow blowing... but that just hasn't happend (yet).

       

North Pole man
Come in from the cold
North Pole man
It's gettin' old
   
Cold hands, cold feet
Darn snow, darn sleet
It takes good friction
To make good heat
   
North Pole man
Come out of the storm
North Pole man
Gotta get you warm
   
Hot rum, steam heat
My lips taste sweet
I got warm cookin'
Spread the table, take a seat
  
North Pole man
Can you afford to?
You outta come here
Come south of the border
  
Come down real slow
It's warm down below
It takes perspiration 

to melt the snow

   

  

  

  

  

    

cce