Category Archives: Astronomy

July 24, 2025 · 23:29

Forever Home – July 24th

One final morning waking up at the West Hills home where we’ve been living for the past 7+ years.

Tonight, after yet another exhausting and very long day, I’m at home in our Forever Home. It’s a little odd still since all of the furniture and dishes and clothing and STUFF is in various trucks and containers and storage, but we’ll be pulling things back into shape starting tomorrow.

Today was a good news day. The PODS containers got picked up and delivered successfully. Tomorrow I start to unpack.

The movers showed up and got all of the “big stuff” into their trucks, and they’ll be here delivering and re-assembling starting at 07:00.

The holes in the front yard which exposed the septic system for inspection ten days ago got filled back in and the landscaping was (more or less) repaired.

Tomorrow I also need to get my office and computers back online. Yes, I know I’m an “addict” to my electronic access, but it’s really a pain trying to do tasks that take 45 seconds on my desktop but 45 minutes to do on my phone with a really slow connection.

And as tired as I am, I took five minutes to go out in the back, look at the stars, and listen to the trains about a mile away. There’s so much less light pollution here. It’s not Joshua Tree or Bryce, but it’s a BIG step up from Los Angeles!

To tomorrow.

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Panorama, Photography

June 28, 2025 · 23:23

High Desert Sunset With A Smoke Kicker

We’re up in Apple Valley and Hesperia looking at open houses. There’s also a large brush fire (currently at 478 acres with zero containment) about a dozen miles south of us. We’re fine, no significant danger, it’s burning in a wilderness area, but the smell is STRONG and there are literal TONS of particulates in the air.

At the left, above the palm trees, is the crescent Moon.

In the wide view, over on the right, is a windmill with neon all over, a part of a minigolf course & some rides next ti the hotel.

MARVELOUS! Now if we could just find a house, get through escrow, and get moved!

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

June 27, 2025 · 23:56

Proof Of Life – June 27th

Time moves on. The work week ends (-ish), The Long Suffering Wife finishes yet another trip around the Sun, and we’re prepping to head up to Apple Valley and Hesperia for the weekend to look at houses (not feeling super excited about any of these, but you have to start somewhere), and where there was a full moon out there a couple weeks ago, tonight we have a four-day old crescent moon setting just after sunset.

Beautiful! I’m glad that Newtonian physics and orbital mechanics are keeping track of what’s going on, ’cause I’m lost!

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

June 13, 2025 · 23:56

Proof Of Life – June 13th

Paraskevidekatriaphobia.

I’m not a superstitious person by any definition, but the way bad shit has been coming for the last month or two (deadlines, the World, this stupid tooth, etc…), you can’t be too sure.

But tonight – might that possibly be the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for the #1 stressor in my life right now?

It’s possible, but I’m not going to get my hopes up. There have been several times in this process where I thought I was doing well and had others explain to me in some detail why I WAS WRONG. (It still might have been a “them” thing more than a “me” thing, but it was depresssing either way.)

Now, while there’s still a day or two of work to do to finish Phase One, enough of the work has been completed and submitted so that I’m not feeling absolutely crushed and hopeless. I’m still going to have to work through all or at least most of the weekend to complete Phase One, and there will be more work coming when Phase Two starts, and there’s probably a Phase Three to follow after that, but it’s like a triathalon. At least I’m getting to the end of that first event. Maybe. Until Monday comes and “they” decide to crush my soul again just because they can.

Things are cloudy and the view is murky – but that might be a ray of light peeking out. (Photo from the 2017 total solar eclipse we saw through high, thin clouds somewhere in southeastern Nebraska.)

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul

June 10, 2025 · 23:55

Proof Of Life – June 10th

The Sun went down:

and the full “strawberry” Moon came up (the final full moon of spring):

I’m still here…

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

May 28, 2025 · 23:48

Beautiousness

Between work deadlines, forever home house hunting, preparing to move sooner rather than later, and *LIFE*, I’m overwhelmed enough so that I don’t know the day of the week without checking my watch, the day of the month is iffy at best, and even which month we’re in can be a crap shoot. Given that, it’s no surprise that I’ve lost track completely of what the current phase of the moon is. I sorta remember a full moon a while back, but was it a week ago? Two weeks ago? Closer to three? Who knows!?

Apparently it was about two and a half weeks ago. While doing a lap of the back yard just after sunset, I spotted this:

My first thought was to think “cool!” and move on. I wasn’t going to take a picture or spend another second on it, I’m swamped. (Remember?)

But then I came to my senses. I took the picture specifically to share tonight as a reminder to stop, look around, pay attention to the beauty and wonders that are lurking everywhere. (Can beauty lurk?)

Life’s short. Listen to Ferris Bueller. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Take time to smell the roses. Or say hello to the crescent moon hanging up there in the sunset clouds.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

May 19, 2025 · 23:50

Cosmic Rays

Late this afternoon I was struck by a really neat idea that I wanted to ponder and develop a bit and then share with everyone here tonight.

Unfortunately, a billion years ago (give or take) a batch of gamma rays got emitted from the event horizon of a black hole somewhere on the far side of the Andromeda Galaxy, travelled through the cosmos, and then some time in the intervening five or six hours this afternoon they smashed through the handful of neurons that were holding that thought, and it’s GONE! (That might also explain some of the drooling…) The sense of how über cool the idea was is still there, but no trace of the idea.

Oh, well. Maybe a backup neuron will kick in and the thought will return. If so, you’ll be the second to know.

In the meantime, have a couple more cool pictures from a couple of Saturdays ago when we were at the Ahmanson.

Behold the intersection of Temple and Grand. Behind us to the left is the Ahmanson, and stretching off behind us to the behind-right are the Mark Taper Forum, the Music Center Plaza (which, you’ll remember, was full of a gala this night), the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and across 1st Street, the Disney Concert Hall, and across 2nd Street, the Broad Museum. But diagonally across the intersection is this giant tan, sandstone-ish structure, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

Time it correctly and get a day when the May Gray or June Gloom clouds are still offshore and you can see the almost full moon rising.

Not a bad spot to sit and eat the sandwiches you’ve brought for the pre-play dinner.

And for those who might still be spouting the right-wing bullshit about what a hellhole California is – I suggest a long walk off of a short pier.

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Filed under Astronomy, Los Angeles, Photography

May 15, 2025 · 23:38

May Full Moon Rising

I think it was full moon when I caught this – might have been a day before or a day after, but close enough for government work.

Not the closest or the biggest, or the furthest away or the smallest, just the one that comes 28 days after the last one, so no headlines, no clickbait, no spam about it.

Sometimes you get lucky playing around with the iPhone settings and you get a decent picture. It’s better to be lucky than good!

That’s pretty!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

May 13, 2025 · 23:50

Moon Cloud

Bright moon, full-ish. Might be tonight, might have been last night. Whatever, close enough for government work.

Odd trail of cloud covering it.

The clouds and the moon are 250,000 miles apart, I think it’s just a coincidental alignment. I like to keep an eye open for such things. And then share them.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Weather

April 12, 2025 · 23:31

A Bad Influence On Dogs

Blanc (the neighbor’s dog) had been howling earlier in the day while I was petting him over the fence, so I reminded him that the “pink” (so named because of the flowers and cherry blossoms blooming at this time of year) new moon was rising tonight, and I promised to come back out later and howl at the rising moon with him.

I came out just as the full moon was peeking over the horizon, went over to the fence, petted Blanc some more, and started howling. Blanc was confused and started barking instead of howling. His owner came out and yelled at him to stop barking and I had to explain that it was my fault for teaching Blanc to do bad things.

I wanted to get a picture of me, Blanc, and the rising full moon, but Blanc wouldn’t stay still long enough.

Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess.

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Photography