Drizzly & damp & cool. It never started raining hard enough to get the tree trunk in the back yard totally wet, but there was a dark water stain from where the water was draining down from the branches.
I’ve heard some folks are referring to these tiny moments of joy as “glimmers,” or “micro-joys.” It’s a little bit of a froufrou term, but I’m mellowing a lot in my old age.
These days we can all use as many glimmers as we can find. Look for yours!
Filed under Critters, Photography, Weather
When we were at the Music Center for the play at the Taper on Saturday, I got this view of City Hall across from the fountains in the center of Jerry Moss Plaza.
In the summer there will be kids out there playing chicken as the fountains pop up and down. In the low 40’s and windy, the crowds dancing in the water were smaller.
Filed under Critters, Los Angeles, Photography
Another “atmospheric river” is moving into Northern California and they’re expected to get clobbered this week – we’re going to catch the edge of it in SoCal, but it should still give us more than an inch of rain over three or four days. Let’s hope it’s gentle and doesn’t produce any mudslides or floods in the recently burned areas.
In advance of that storm, the sky was covered this afternoon with thin, high, wispy, icy clouds.
Looking toward the Sun as it was getting near the horizon, 22° of arc out, just above the roof and trees to the southwest, there was a rainbow-colored sundog.
Red on the sunward side, blue on the outside, there was probably another one on the opposite side of the Sun, but hidden by the house here.
There are some truly amazing images out there of extremely bright sundogs on opposite sides of the Sun, along with a 22° arc around the Sun. It’s all caused by the sunlight being scattered by the high altitude ice crystals, but watch out for fake and AI-generated images. It seems to be a favorite topic for fakes, probably because most folks don’t know what they really look like and get fooled.
When being awed by natural wonders, insist on the real thing!
Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Photography, Weather
I don’t know if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow or not.
Here, we had enough clouds to make sunset spectacular, with the crescent Moon now well above the brilliant Venus.
Let February begin.
Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Photography, Sunsets
We’re back at the Music Center, tonight again at the Mark Taper Forum, not the Ahmanson, for “Fake It Until You Make It.”
Across the street, behind the sculpture and flagpoles, is this:
That’s the Department of Water & Power building and no matter how short of energy we might be from time to time, no matter the brownouts when it’s 115° and fifteen million people are running their air conditioners at Warp Factor 11, these empty office are always lit up like a Christmas tree.
And no matter how many years long the drought is, or how dead our lawns are because of the rationing, those fountains are going 24/7/365.
Welcome to LA!
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography
That’s a classic line for a title, but a highly inaccurate one. While there are stars in view, the bright objects are not stars, but planets and our Moon.
When I first went out it reminded me of several symbolic scenes from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” (If there’s a giant 4x9x16 black alien obelisk floating out there to do something amazing and save the human race from our own incredible stupidity, NOW would be a good time! Just saying…)
The super bright object in the middle (and the upside down internal reflection from the iPhone camera above and to the left) is obviously the Moon. It’s a three-day old, 9% illuminated crescent that’s just stunningly gorgeous hanging there (see that upside down, reflected image) but still far brighter than anything else in the sky outside of the Sun.
The next brightest object, center top, is Venus, the third brightest object in the sky. It will be there for another couple of months in the evening sky. Tomorrow night the Moon and Venus will be even closer, if not lined up like a movie special effects shot. (Look for it yourself just after sunset!) We’ll see if we can see it here in LA, the weather’s supposed to be getting cloudy.
(Image: Star Walk app for iPhone)
I was curious if the bright object just above and to the left of the Moon was another internal reflection or not, but it’s apparently Saturn. I knew that it was out there, but in the twilight and slight haze (which also is making that halo around the Moon) I couldn’t see it with the naked eye. But no, that’s got to be Saturn that the camera’s picking up with a long exposure.
Not seen, but also there, is Neptune, just to the left of Venus. I might be able to pick it out as a pinpoint with my 8″ telescope (Venus and Saturn will show visible disks, Saturn’s rings would be clearly visible) and it might show some blue color, but the iPhone doesn’t have a chance.
Taking even longer exposures (this is 20 seconds, the longest my iPhone 13 will do) under the landing approach to Burbank Airport can lead to other visual visitors becoming prominent. That’s a private Cessna 550 Citation coming into Burbank at 3,725 feet and 127 knots.
And one other thing I notice in looking at these images on the big computer monitors instead of on the iPhone – take a look (full-sized images) at the Sky Walk image. Immediately to the left of the symbol for Neptune, there’s a quadralateral of four dimmer stars. You can see where Neptune is centered about midway between Venus and that quadralateral of stars. Now look at the full-sized image above, and there’s that quadralateral off to the left of Venus.
Can you see Neptune in there? Was I wrong above about the iPhone being able to pull it in? There are two very, very dim objects, one closer to the quadralateral and just above the wires, the other higher and closer to Venus. Could one of those be Neptune?
Zooming in as far as the Sky Walk app will take me, it might be the lower one, near the wire.
Intriguing…
Filed under Airshows, Astronomy, Critters, Photography, Space
Similar sunset to yesterday (they’re never quite identical) but this time looking to the east at the pines in the back lit up.
I wish the photo portrayed the vividness of the light half as well as it appeard to the eye.
We may safely blame the photographer, not Mother Nature, for the discrepancy.
Filed under Critters, Photography, Sunsets
It’s been a while. Between one thing and the other I haven’t been out much at any time of the day except to retrieve the mail and take out the trash, let alone going out at the correct time.
Nothing fancy – simple, straightforward, beautiful.
No Moon out there tonight – the first New Moon of the year means that it’s the beginning of the Lunar New Year! Happy Year of the Snake!
Venus is still out there like a diamond. When it gets a bit darker, Saturn’s visible a bit below it. When it’s fully dark, you’ll see Jupiter, almost as bright as Venus, straight overhead. And back toward the east rom there’s Mars, not quite as bright but very, very red.
Enjoy!
Filed under Critters, Photography, Sunsets
The title says it all!
I had concerns because today started out as Day Four of a high fever, chills, body aches, and a wicked bad headache, after having the exact same symptoms about ten days ago for three days. I didn’t want to be the guy who has to come into the Emergency Room in a week and have some ER doctor asking me, “Why didn’t you come in a week ago? Are you some kind of an idiot?!”
Those are actually two separate questions, but I can answer the first one. Thus I spent four-plus hours in Urgent Care today.
After various tests and probes, they ruled out COVID (which I told them from the beginning since I wasn’t having any respiratory problems) and the flu (as I told them, since I had no GI or nausea issues). After pretty much ruling out a couple of other likely issues, they determined (as was my non-doctor, medically uneducated guess) that it was an infection. Probably a UTI, which would fit with my medical history of kidney stones, although at least I haven’t had that screaming agony to deal with this time.
So, industrial grade antibiotskis it is for the next ten days and dealing with all of the potential side effects of that.
What I would really, REALLY like is this fever to finally break and vanish and let me get about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. But that’s probably not going to happen either.
I’ll take eight hours, and after the last week’s schedule and fevers and chills, be grateful for six.
Any port in a storm.
Filed under Health
I’m going to assume that it’s bright red like that in celebration of the Chiefs win yesterday and their upcoming Superb Owl appearance with a chance to become the first team to win a “three-peat” in that event.
Right?
No?
Filed under Critters, Health, KC Chiefs, Photography
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 