And the moon landed on his head….

One of my Christmas presents was a night light, about 18 inches in diameter that is based on the moon. It lights up as a full moon but you can also set it to gently run through phases like the real moon with a remote control.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. The nightlight gives enough light, if you sit up in bed, to read a book by. So about six am I got the novel I’m reading out and read for about twenty minutes. Then I lay down to try and sleep. I reached up to turn out the light with the little switch at the base of it. Oops! I pushed too hard, the large plastic domed moon slid off the little nail it was loosely hooked on, it slid sideways as I tried to grab it, and bump! Hit my hubby on the head. He was fast asleep but shouted out wha? Then fell back to sleep. This morning after hooking the moon back up, I asked him if he remembered being hit by the moon. He replied he wondered what had happened? I said the Moon fell on him!

Waxing moon through firework smoke

The moon is three quarters full and was setting behind a tree as midnight struck to end 2022. I tried to take a few photos but my automatic filter makes the moon too bright and is very overexposed. You cannot see its shape. So I tried using manual settings, with that I could get a little bit more definition, but it’s far too grainy. However you can see its not full. There was a mist or firework smoke drifting across the sky. More fireworks had gone off in a few minutes than we saw over the whole of November 5th. The cats were very scared. But it’s calmed down now.

Happy New year to you all.

He bought me… The Moon

My hubby bought me the Moon yesterday. He knows I love astronomy. It’s a light that is domed so it looks like one side of the moon. It has a remote control and goes through phases as you press one of the buttons or scrolls through them if you press the other button, slowly waxing and waning as you watch it. It’s not astronomically accurate, just a rough surface with vague craters and marès painted on it. It’s only a nightlight, I put it in the bedroom and tried to read by it but it’s just too dim. But good for getting up in the middle of the night because it’s not too bright so it won’t wake my hubby up. X

Digital earth and moon

This was an old drawing I did online a few years ago. It was at the website called Sketchfu (closed about five years ago). I’ve always loved astronomy and this was a good challenge to try and get a reasonably accurate drawing using very simple tools. The hardest thing was getting the image blurred enough to feel realistic. Colours were chosen from a couple of hundred choices. There were only five sized circular pens and a slider to alter the opacity. Plus an eraser to clear away mistakes. You could add layers so you could show your progress, or do a collaboration with other artists, the only real problem was the images took ages to load.

Partial Eclipse

There is a partial eclipse across Europe tomorrow. 25.10.2022. Don’t look up at the sun unless you have proper eclipse glasses. It can burn your retinas and blind you because of ultra violet radiation. But one thing you can do is look at the ground, either in a puddle and yo may see a reflection, or if you stand under a tree that’s in leaf you may see images projected on the ground that look like crescent moons. These are images of the sun as the moon partly glides across it. The reason for the images? The leave are acting like a pinhole camera.

Artemis probe

I saw there is an unmanned mission to the moon called Artemis. Its from NASA and its part of a plan to send a team including woman and a person of colour to the moon. Its fifty three years since the first men landed on the Moon.

I looked up Artemis and she was the Greek goddess of hunting, Similar to the roman goddess Diana. I suppose its a good name for it. I wonder when it will happen. I hope it does. I think it’s possible, but I really think it’s unlikely that we will ever go to Mars?