Six Lessons Learned On The Grass

Last Friday, while having my telescope set up at my daughter’s school, we saw what I believe to be a Falcon 9 upper stage venting excess fuel on its first orbit around after a Starlink launch from Florida. Tonight there was a very similar launch at a very similar time on a very similar mission, so about 80 minutes after the launch I sat out on my front yard with a camera for a while just in case it happened again. It didn’t. But there were still six lessons I learned.

1. With the multiple flood lights set up by the new neighbor across the street, it’s tough to see anything more dim than a 737’s landing lights going into Burbank. DAMN! In the search for the Forever Home in the High Desert, I’ll have to keep that in mind.
2. When it’s quiet, you can hear the train whistles from the Santa Susanna Pass, about two miles away as the crow flies. Funny, I would have guessed it was closer to ten miles, but Google Earth says otherwise.
3. The rabbits out on the front lawn freak out when I go and sit down on the grass – that’s their grass and there was a lot of leporine side eye going on. I didn’t know I needed an invitation.
4. In addition to the trains, there were repeated calls from what I’ve always referred to as a “night hawk” or “screech owl.” Turns out the latter guess was closer – what I’m hearing is the screech of a barn owl. Given the Great Horned Owls we hear almost every night, I guess I’m not surprised to hear another kind of owl around as well. But I’ve never, ever seen one, I just hear them once or twice a night, and several times tonight.
5. The rabbits would be a lot healthier if they spent less time giving me the stinkeye and more time watching out for those barn owls.
6. The sprinklers turn on at 8:00. With little or no warning. Good thing I’m wash & wear, even at my advanced age.

The Forever Home definitely needs to have dark skies, trains, owls and hawks, and probably rabbits. Although I suspect in that environment (and sort of here as well) the coyotes will be more of an issue for the rabbits than the owls and hawks.