Eclipse adventure

So, the eclipse.

Seeing a total solar eclipse is one of the few achievable items on my bucket list, and I've known for awhile that there would be one just a couple of hours away on August 21, 2017.

We purchased a camping spot in Lathrop, Missouri, a couple of hours from home, and very near the center line of totality. Lathrop is a small town, and we thought we might enjoy that more than the huge event that was planned in St. Joseph. Also, we were able to get a camping spot with electricity, which is always a plus.

In the days before the eclipse, we watched the weather forecast - maybe clouds and rain, maybe not. Over the weekend, we mentioned our concerns to someone at the astronomy club. "You already have a spot?" he said. "Then go. You will still have fun."

Even on the drive down Sunday afternoon, watching heavy clouds, we pondered switching and heading towards Saint Louis, where my aunt's backyard was also in the path of totality. But we had left the cat home alone, and STL would be a longer drive home for us. We decided to stick with Lathrop, reminding ourselves of our friend's admonition - "You will still have fun."

We camped at the Antique Show Grounds, which appeared to be a cross between a normal county fairground, and one of those old town reconstructions. It wasn't too crowded where we camped, and we had a nice southern view.

Monday morning, we got up, found the coffee truck, drove into town for a couple of errands, and came back to the camper. Then it started rain. Thunderstorm, actually - for an hour and a half. I dared to hope that it would clear things out for later in the day. After the rain stopped, we walked around and looked at some of the antique doodads. My favorite was an honest-to-goodness Burma Shave sign.





Our friend Kim drove down from Des Moines and arrived in time to watch the eclipse with us. The clouds were still thick, but occasionally there would be a "sucker hole" where we could see the sun. I used my straw hat as a pinhole viewer. We could see the growing eclipse until just before totality. We could definitely feel it getting cooler, and darker, although that didn't seem much different than when thick storm clouds roll in.



I am fairly sure I saw the "diamond ring" just before totality. Then, suddenly, it got dramatically darker. There were enough clouds that we could not see the corona, but we definitely knew that something different had happened. It was much darker than could be explained by clouds. There were still lots of ooh and ahs from folks nearby. We could see the 360 degrees of dusk, but never did see the eclipsed sun.

 

After a couple of minutes, it lightened up again, and totality was over. I told Terry and Kim, "Even though we didn't SEE the total eclipse, we can absolutely say we EXPERIENCED it."

We found out later that, had we hopped in the car and driven five or ten miles to the south, we could have seen totality. But who knew?

The good news is, the next eclipse in the US in only seven years away - April 8, 2024 - and my niece and sister-in-law both live in the path of totality. Clear a spot, ladies, because we plan to be there.

But in 2017? We DID have fun.

Lucky

Astro quilt, a photo by chaimann on Flickr.

This is part of the quilt that I won at the star party. (Thank you, Okie-Tex!)

It's huge. It could easily be a bedspread on our queen-size bed, It won't be, though. Even before we got home, I told T that it would have to stay out of the reach of she with the thick fur and sharp claws.

If you look carefully in the upper corners, you will see flamingos. Flamingos are the unofficial mascot of the star party, and there is one embroidered on each corner of the quilt.

Bad night for astronomy

I didn't take many pictures at the Iowa Star Party this year, but one I did take ended up as Peek of the Week over at the Piker Press.

It was flippin' hot before the thunderstorm blew through, and quite lovely after, albeit a bit moony, so T got some observing in. Mostly, it was just a good chance to sit around and not do too awfully much.

Pictures in my head

We went to Whiterock Conservancy last weekend for the Iowa Star Party. The big event of the weekend is the Saturday picnic dinner on a lawn overlooking a river,  followed by an educational presentation in an old barn.

After dinner, our host, Liz, came around handing out scissors. "Go down to the garden and cut some flowers, and then bring them back up to the house, and we'll put them in Mason jars." I agreed, reluctantly, as I am not much of a flower person, but Liz can be persuasive.

There is a cutting garden down by the river, full of flowers I could not name. I was still a little hesitant, but Liz assured me that we were not cutting flowers for anything particular, just dead-heading them so they would bloom more. I interpreted that as, "Heck, yes, cut the pretty ones." So I did.

Even though I couldn't put a name to most of the flowers, I know good colors when I see them. This garden was at least as big as my house, and a riot of color - sunny yellow, warm gold, peach, pink, deep red, and an occasional pop of purple. Some blooms were as big as my fist, some were little bulbs no larger than my thumb, and some were tall spikes.

Back at the house, we got a beginner's course in flower arranging. Strip the lower leaves so they are not in the water, and don't forget to dress (hide) the rim. Some people made symmetrical clusters of matched flowers. Others just jammed a bunch into the water. I was somewhere in between, not too fussy, but willing to fiddle around a little bit to get a nice balance.

Since I was actually doing something, I left my camera with T. I suspect that by not looking for a way to record the moment, I was actually able to enjoy the moment more. But dang, I wish you could see all of those flowers, and experience the delight of picking the best ones for your own little bouquet.

Daytime moon

Daytime moon
Originally uploaded by chaimann

It's warming up, finally, and I took a short walk this afternoon. It was cloudless and clear, and the gibbous moon was high in the sky.

Welcome 2009!

Here's to a year in which some of the things that are broken get fixed. (Insert your own list of broken things that need fixin'.)

Last night, I managed to stay up until midnight, barely. The clock said 12:00 when I got into bed.

I am resolutely trying to avoid resolutions, although in my heart I have some. In my heart. Don't go looking for the list here.

I did commit to write some Backyard Astronomy articles for The Piker Press this year, in honor of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The introductory article went up this week, and I'm planning to write them more or less every other week.

I also got a Twitter account for Backyard Astronomy. You can see the feed over there on the sidebar. The account is BackyardAstro. This introverted geezer doesn't quite know what to make of this social media stuff, but new year, new beginnings, what the heck, give it a whirl. At the very least, I can report when new articles go up.

It's autumn already?

Technically, not quite, I know, but after a beautiful sunny and clear Labor Day weekend, it turned cloudy and cool and wet, and the most delicate of the foliage is already starting to wilt.

Let's see, immediately after the last post, our astronomy club hosted a convention, so we were busy with that. Then after that was over, we relaxed for a week. Then, because it was almost August, AKA The Month When My Eyes Act Screwy, my eyes started acting screwy. Six weeks, several specialists, and some fancy-pants medical treatments later, I'm pretty much back to normal or at least my eyes are. While I was Abby Normal, though, I didn't spend a lot of time hanging around the computer. T kindly gave me his rarely used desktop computer, with a 22 inch monitor (love it!) and Windows Vista (hate it!)

That didn't deter me from making the annual pilgrimage to Stitches Midwest, but it did help keep my shopping in check. Shopping just isn't that much fun when you can't see what you are doing, or aren't sure if you will ever be able to see well enough to use the purchase. (Of course, except for making my annual tithe at Black Water Abbey, I bought all lace weight, so don't listen to me.)

I can read again, and knit socks and lace, and even stargaze. Last weekend, we went to the Iowa Star Party at White Rock Conservancy, about an hour from here, and I did a little binocular viewing. In fact, once night T's telescope went wonky, and I actually did more viewing than he did. The weather, as I said, was perfect for camping and astronomy - cloudless and moonless and temperate. It did get warm one day, but it was also windy, so it was still pleasant.

Now, with the cooler weather and clearer vision, my knitting mojo has returned with a vengeance. I keep diving into the WIPs (works in progress) and finding something else that I absolutely must have before winter. Maybe one of these days I will even have some photos of finished objects to share.

Shoot the moon

Moon1
Originally uploaded by chaimann

Terry pointed his telescope at the moon last night while waiting for it to get dark. I sneaked up and stuck my camera up to the eyepiece. Pretty nice for a first attempt, huh?

Rainbow, first day of summer

Rainbow
Originally uploaded by chaimann

We went to Ashton Observatory yesterday for a work party with the astronomy club. A quick little rain storm blew through while we were there. Once the sun started to peek through, people hovered near the door, looking for a rainbow. We thought we might not get one, since the sun was still rather high, but soon someone spotted the top of an arc. Work ground to a halt as folks wandered outside to enjoy a fleeting view. (More pictures here.)

In the Bible, of course, the rainbow is the sign from God that he will never again destroy the Earth with a flood. How appropriate is that, as Iowa gets back on its feet after two weeks of floods? We stayed safely above it at both home and work, but we drive through recently flooded areas regularly. The recovery seems to be coming along well, but it still stinks, even in the car, even with the windows rolled up. Out in the country, it just has that fishy river smell, In town, though, it smells like river, and fish... and mold... and people laugh at this, but I swear I smell sauerkraut.

Even more visitors

This weekend, knitters Alcariel and Mamateja came to town for a party. They joined the KnitWits Friday night for knitting at Borders. Alcariel brought her wheel and started spinning some new roving, which caught the interest of several people. Mamateja worked on her socks for the Rockin' Sock Club.

Saturday, I joined them for a yarn crawl. We covered three stores in 2.5 hours, and *ahem* yarn diets were abandoned. Not by me, mind you. I only bought sock yarn, and (say it with me, knitters) "Sock Yarn Doesn't Count." One is a sport weight, which will be hitting the size 3 "insti-socks" needles as soon as the current sock is done - and it is close.

It turns out Alcariel and I have similar color preferences and are drawn like moths to the bright, rich blues. There was a bit of tug-of-war when we saw this Jordana Paige knitting bag at Purls. After ogling its features and trying it on for size, I backed off and let her buy it. I figured I can go back any time to get one for myself - or put it on my Christmas list.

Saturday night, Terry sweet-talked me into going the observatory with him. Although it was full moon, it was clearer than it had been for several days, and there were a lot of visitors there. The night's big attraction was Saturn and Venus, which were less than a degree apart.

In search of The Duke

On Sunday, KnightStar and I went to Winterset to see John Wayne's birthplace and take a few pictures for the Piker Press. See them here and here. There were a lot of activities on Saturday, but we couldn't get there until Sunday. That's just as well, since neither of us is crazy about big crowds.

I forgot to mention last week, but I had another photo in the Press, of Venus and the Moon. It is here. That one is also going to be in our astronomy club newsletter soon.

I've knit a couple of afghan squares and started a new sock. No, I haven't finished any of the socks-in-progress yet. Leave me alone.

My friend Wendy wrote a few days ago about how they finally, in February, had snow. Her beautiful winter wonderland has just arrived in the Midwest. Starting last night, we had rain, hail, and thunderstorms. Today, the rain changed to sleet and freezing rain.

Frozen, see?

And before I could get the pictures posted, sleet and blowing snow.

I worked on an art project today, about which, more later. As in Monday.

I blame the bad weather on Terry and his new toy.

Snow and Stars

I've been busy with NaNoWriMo, and not much else. The writing is going well. Thanks to our fabulous local group and many write-ins, I have been staying ahead of schedule. It's probably going to blow my cushion, but tonight I plan to knit first, write later. After all, if I don't stay in touch with humanity, what am I going to write about?

We had snow today! It was the best kind - fluffy and pretty in the air, and melted immediately from the streets.

Last weekend, Terry finally received his Messier Club certificate and pin, which he earned last spring. He had to observe the 110 items on the Messier list of deep sky objects, and could not use computer guidance on the telescope to find them.

Katie's new favorite hobby is killing the phone book.

I found this picture from a few months ago while I was looking for the snow picture on the pda.

Doesn't everyone deserve a personal watermelon?