Partial Eclipse of the Moon late this Thursday evening, 2026 August 27/28: A field trip for Headwaters Nature I’m inviting you to join me late this Thursday evening (not Friday evening as I earlier wrote in error) to see the partial eclipse of the Moon as it transits across the sky from low in the South-East and across the South, and into the South-West. My thanks to those who pointed out my silly error about Friday evening … We’ll be going out on Thursday evening.) The sky is predicted to be clear late on Thursday evening and into Friday morning. It will be about 15ºC at midnight, and dropping slowly. (I hesitate to say this, but there might also be a chance to see the Aurora Borealis that evening.) I will be dressing very warmly in several layers including a windproof outer jacket, and some light gloves and a warm wooly… Read more »
On the early evening of 2023 January 14, we had ten of us out watching while Orion “came up sideways, throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains” last night. (Robert Frost, “The Star Splitters”) Thanks for coming out to Island Lake and sharing my enthusiasms about the night sky! Let’s do this again with a different part of the sky. (See below about the coming ‘green’ comet, Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF. If we get good viewing conditions, I’ll set up another field trip on short notice.) It was cool on January 14th, but the skies were remarkably clear. It seemed like none of us had seen the clear night sky for months! Sirius was an absolute glory to watch as it cleared the ridge across the lake, twinkling ecstatically and flashing brilliantly in the full glory across almost the whole rainbow of colours. It truly seemed to dance… Read more »
Four of us turned out at Island Lake to hope for clear skies — and we were in luck! Clouds covered the moonrise to the east, but the cloud-free western skies for sunset gave us hope. In the meantime, 5 cormorants flew to roost nearby in a remarkably flimsy dead tree, swaying in the light breezes. Muskrats dove in front of us, surfacing with winter vegetative clumps on which they munched while lying on the surface. At least three Killdeer called repetitively amongst themselves. Two Great Blue Herons foraged successfully in the shallows right beside us long into darkness. The clouds stayed off low along the horizon to the east as the Moon rose above them. Shafts of high thin altocumulus rose westwards out of the bank of clouds. These shafts of cloud alternately covered and uncovered the eclipsing Moon, providing some gorgeous opportunities for photos. My trusty smartphone was pushed to… Read more »
