Symbolic Forest

It’s been quiet around here lately, partly because I’ve been trying to hide from the various summer heatwaves, and partly because I’ve been beavering away at something else in the background. I’ve set up a YouTube channel, and have posted my first proper video, the start of a Lego build. It’s only small, and I’m still learning, but one thing I’ve already learned is that coming up with the idea, shooting all the footage, writing the narration, recording it, editing the whole thing together…well, it’s a lot more work than just writing a blog post.

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Keyword noise: videos, crafting, Lego, astronomy, Perseids, meteors, meteor shower.

Just as it was this time last year, it’s Astronomy News time because we’re coming into the season of the best and biggest meteor shower of the year, the Perseids, which reach their peak next weekend. This year the peak coincides roughly with the full moon, which is in the early hours of Friday morning, but hopefully the brightest meteors will still stand out—or you can always wait a few days into the following week, because the like most meteor showers you can still see plenty of meteors in the few days either side of the Perseids’ peak. Get a chair you can lean back in, sit outside on a clear night, and watch the sky until you see them flash across it.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Perseids.

Time for me to point out another of those regular events on the astronomical calendar. We’re just coming into the season of the Lyrids meteor shower, which should peak a week on Sunday in the early hours of the morning. So, if you fancy going meteor-spotting, next weekend is your best chance to do it until August. The phase of the moon makes it not too promising this year, but meteor-spotting is one of the easiest and simplest forms of astronomy there is, so if you fancy it and don’t mind being up in the middle of the night, go out and give it a try. The Royal Observatory Greenwich has some advice, but essentially, all you need to do it sit in a dark spot outside, look up at the sky, and relax.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteor shower, meteors, Lyrids.

If you’re into astronomy—or if you were reading this blog this time last year—you might remember that the first week in January is home to one of the big annual meteor showers, the Quadrantids. I still keep meaning to write a blog post about Quadrans Muralis and other forgotten constellations, and I’m sure I will do at some point. Anyway, as I was saying, last night was the Quadrantids’ peak night.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Quadrantids.

You might remember, if you’ve read back as far as last March or April, that I’d been trying some astrophotography but hadn’t got very far. I still haven’t got very far, largely because it’s summer, and we are only just out of the part of the year where it never gets properly dark at all here.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Perseids.

Those of you who read yesterday’s post about the Lyrid meteor shower may well be waiting on the edges of your seats for further information as to how the night went.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Lyrids.

There haven’t been many astronomical posts on here recently. Partly, that is, because as the seasons turn it’s no longer feasible for The Children to stay up and get the telescope out, at least not on a school night; and I have to stay up later and later for the sky to be dark enough. Indeed, a little over a month from now, it won’t be technically night at all for a while here. At this latitude there’s a whole two-month period, centred on the summer solstice, when it doesn’t officially get any darker than “astronomical twilight”. As of today, you have to wait after 10.30pm or so (local time, that is) for it to be night night.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteor shower, meteors, Lyrids.

Another small astronomy note: the first of the year’s big meteor showers occurs over the next couple of days. I know it’s less than a month since the last big meteor shower of 2020, the Geminids, but tomorrow we have the peak of the Quadrantid shower. They’re a bit harder to see than the Geminids, partly because they’re usually fainter and partly because they’re concentrated into a narrower stream, so they’re seen over a much shorter time-range. Moreover, looking at the weather forecast, I doubt we’re going to have clear enough skies to have any chance of seeing them.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Quadrantids.

A few weeks ago, I read on Twitter—sadly I seem to have lost the reference—that the Welsh Hydref, used for either the month of October or autumn as a whole, originally had the literal meaning of “stag-cry”. From that, it turned into “stag-rutting season” and hence autumn. Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru lists “stag-rutting”, but not “stag-cry”.

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Keyword noise: Cymraeg, seasons, autumn, yr Hydref, meteor shower, meteors, Geminids, astronomy.

This is not going to turn into an astronomy blog, I promise, and I know I already mentioned some exciting upcoming astronomy news just over a week ago. There is something else interesting and astronomical happening in December, though.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, meteors, meteor shower, Geminids, Uranus.

This is a slightly faded memory, from a few years ago now, from the last time I was in the Outer Hebrides. It’s a late night, two in the morning or so, in August. You can hardly make out a thing in the darkness. There’s a crowd of us sat around in deckchairs, in the front yard of the University farmhouse, heads leaning back. We’ve all just returned from the “local” pub, about six miles away, and we’re sitting outside to watch for the Perseids. Out there on the Atlantic coast, the sky seems, strangely, lighter than elsewhere, because of the number of stars scattered across it. The sky is filled with patterns of light, coming from millions of years ago; and leaning back in a deckchair, the age, complexity and size of it all fills me with a slightly dizzy awe.^* Every thirty seconds or so, a meteor flashes across the dark sky, and everybody watching smiles.

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Keyword noise: astronomy, Callanish, ink polaroids, Lewis, memories, meteors, Outer Hebrides, Perseids, Scotland.