Moon & Venus

[vin_petrol]

If it's twilight (or dark) where you are now, and the sky is clear, Venus is looking bright and pretty just a few degrees North (right and down a little in the Northern hemisphere) of the crescent moon. You can also clearly see the Earthshine on the dark areas of the lunar disk.

Comments

[cyberspice.livejournal.com]

My bedroom is a loft room and the sky last night did look particularly bright and wonderful. I noticed Venus then. I often stand and just watch the sky on the way back from a nocturnal visit to the little room. I don't use lights specifically so that I can I keep my night vision.

Apart from the lights in the sky being high up we have a spectacular view of Leeds and of the flight path for Leeds/Bradford. Planes will just pop in to existence when they turn their landing lights on somewhere over south Leeds before gently dropping as pass over the city before landing at the airport. I often return to bed imaging the wonderful places the passengers on those planes have been too and generally doze back to sleep thinking how unadventurous I am.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Leeds-Bradford? Not too many wonderful places you can fly to from there ;)

I was recently on one of the KLM-UK flights back from Amsterdam (I'd been to the States on business, but we used to use KLM a lot) and had a whale of a time though - it was like being on a little country bus. They had a little celebration with a cakes for a regular who was making his last flight with them for a while, and the pilot kept up a stream of chatter over the intercom - "We'll be following th'M62 while Pontefract, then turnin' left..."

Yeadon's a bloody funny place to fly into/out of though - bleak as all hell!

[vin_petrol]

Leeds-Bradford? Not too many wonderful places you can fly to from there ;)

Aye, very true. The only time I've used that airport was to go to Southampton. I think the tiny plane had 18 seats. I had a window seat which I could hardly sit up straight in without banging my head on the curvature of the fuselage. It was odd flying over the Midlands though - so much of my early years (Donnington Park, East Midlands Airport, etc) was visible below.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

The most enjoyable flight I ever made was flying back from the US to Heathrow; we crossed the coast near Liverpool at about 6pm on a beautiful cloudless evening, the whole country was spread out before us, lit up and looking like a roadmap in negative. You could recognise every town, every main road... it was an hour or so of pure geography lesson!

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Every cloud is silver line-y :-)

Reminds me of a night flight back from Switzerland... all the twinkling lights of european towns spread out below... I think you can get a map from the natural history museum of what the UK looks like from the sky at night.

[vin_petrol]

I think you can get a map from the natural history museum of what the UK looks like from the sky at night.

It certainly exists as a poster, 'cos I used to have it! It was one of the various "space themed" posters The Data Capture Department at Pindar used to have to brighten up our working area. We had things like "Earthrise" and "Andromeda Galaxy" as well. It's cute being able to pick out all the cities ("there's York"), and see how sparsely populated the highlands of Scotland are. I got it mail order from Armagh planetarium, but I've just looked and they don't seem to stock it anymore. Space pictures are great for cheering up the office in a management-friendly manner. You can also contemplate the infinity of the universe and how insignificant your job is in relation to it. This is not always a good thing! :-) I've no idea what happened to these posters. I had some postcards too, and I've still got those - they're stuck up next to my desk here. I suspect the posters were just too much trouble to get home on my motorbike, and I left them at Pindar.

We also had
"Europe by Night", which I thought was a prettier poster. You can really see how densely populated England and "the low countries" are
compared to the rest of Europe. The British Astronomical Association do sell this one.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

You can also contemplate the infinity of the universe and how insignificant your job is in relation to it. This is not always a good thing!

I dunno... *bangs head against screen*

My bedroom is already adorned with a calendar featuring amazing shots taken from the Hubble telescope... much more and it'll start to look like a boy's room ;-)

Re: Donnington

[(Anonymous)]

And you have reverted to the well know American and International spelling of Donnington Park. Shame on you and you call yourself a biker!!! Go cut your fingers off for bad spelling.

[vin_petrol]

And you have reverted to the well know American and International spelling of Donnington Park.

I can't win. Last time I wrote "Donington" in an email I ended up having a looooong discussion about the correct spelling, with someone who was convinced it should be "Donnington" and that that I cud not spel. So I thought if I wrote "Donnington" I could avoid that, as that's the spelling the majority of people *expect* to see. Seems I can't!

I'll have to keep a little disclaimer file handy with notes about the correct spelling in it, and use it whenever I write about that racing circuit that hosts Monsters of Rock.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I take it that's venus at about 4 o'clock from the moon? It's certainly very bright.

[vin_petrol]

I take it that's venus at about 4 o'clock from the moon?

Yes, that's correct. I was out walking earlier and Venus came into visibility within perhaps a minute of the sun setting.

[ant-girl.livejournal.com]

I saw that -- I was watching it on the way home from the Lake District. Very pretty. And amazing too, because Venus appeared before the sky was even properly dark; long before any other stars.

[mister-ed.livejournal.com]

That reminds me.. sorry about not replying to your text about looking at sky-stuff last night.
This time I let my text message buffer overrun.. I didn't even notice until this morning...

I was quite bored last night, too.. although I did eventually use the time to make some more creative outfit stuffage for SBA giggage..