Skip navigation

Tag Archives: night sky

A Walk in the Dark

It rained off and on all day yesterday and poured down hard in the evening. It rained so hard I could not see lights across the valley for a while. I don’t mind that. But then, I woke up at 2 am and the sky was clear and full of stars. I laid there for a while and finally talked myself into getting dressed, gathering my camera gear and going out in the dark. The dogs were confused and wanted to go out too but then they wanted in. Ken was out of town for work.

The moon had already set. The stars were uncountable. The night was dark. I ventured down the driveway and up the road a bit. I heard sounds of animals moving in the brush and hoped that none of them were cougars or angry deer. For the most part it was quiet except for the occasional vehicle on the highway down below. I saw a few shooting stars but none crossed my images.

When I was done, sleep eluded me for the longest time.

I’m still working on the process of processing these night sky images.

 

January Wolf Moon

Total lunar eclipse. Red moon. Wolf moon. Full moon. Lots of descriptors for last night’s moon. It was stunning to watch. Constantly changing. We were lucky to see it. The skies had been overcast all day and even when the moon came up, there was still a thick hazy cloud cover.

As if that wasn’t enough, the moon set this morning was also stunning. Sinking in the deep blue sky that gradually turned to purple and pink alpenglow.

Evening Skies

Our evening skies have been especially lovely recently due to wildfire smoke coming down from Canada. It’s pretty ironic that we’d get so much beauty from such destructive forces. We are lucky to live in a place that doesn’t have too much light pollution.

Can you see Cassiopeia and the Great-horned Owl?
Last night the clouds were amazing and the light was other worldly.
Today, the smoke is so thick, I cannot see the mountains.

Clouds and Stars

It’s good to go outside with the dogs at night. Sometimes they see something, like a deer, that brings on a fit of barking and they need to be corralled. Other times I see something interesting. Last night it was the clouds. They were thin and illuminated by the waxing moon that was low in the west. These views are looking north. The dogs went inside long before I did.

Oct202015_0009

 

Oct202015_0012

Night Skies of the Methow

Last week I made a few attempts to stay up late or set an alarm in hopes of seeing the aurora borealis but my timing was all off. I never did see the colors and pillars of light that others were seeing. Big sigh. I did see some lovely night skies though. We are lucky to be able to see lots of stars since we don’t have a terrible amount of light pollution. People here value that particular quality of life in the Methow and work hard to encourage others to cut down on night lighting or shroud their lights in such a way that the ground is lit but the light is not spread far and wide ruining others’ night time experiences. For more information on this issue, see the International Dark Sky Association website.

This is a good time to see Venus and Jupiter in the early evening sky. From our vantage point they will come close to converging in a few days.

Venus and Jupiter appear to be getting closer to each evening.
%d bloggers like this: