Early Christmas Card

 The transition from one season to another, not always in logical progression still brings me to consider how my life is being spent.

 

So here is a recent thought:

 

Since November 11, remember every day, there have been violent thunder storms and all the snow is gone,

 

WOB 

It began months ago

 And then it disappeared, carried by the Sun's rotation out of sight.

But then it, AR4274,  reappeared!

 AR4274 had returned.  It had been tracked via GONG, a global network of telescopes observing the Sun almost continuously since I first heard of it back in 1988. It is not often that sunspots survive a complete solar rotation.

 

But it did_

 I also observed it on Saturday November 8:

 

This sunspot group may have been responsible for the aurora seen during this time. Unfortunately it was cloudy wet here and I saw nothing but clouds and maybe a faint glow on the northern horizon.

And now solar rotation has carried it from view. Will it return in a few more weeks?

 

 WOB

I am stumped

 What a contrast between a day in early April and this day in early November:

 

 

If "all" is not lost,

where do I find "it"?

 

 The blue and yellow colours are to be found  elsewhere, too.

 

WOB 

DND radar sites in green-green environmentally sensitve Clearview township

 I am not a permanent resident of this region - I migrate through in Spring and Autumn, I cannot say "Ouch". I do have a long memory, I recall the debate about the "Bomarc" and felt the nuclear fallout over me:

 

 "Better Red than Dead"

A-OTHR   - "Eve of ..."

Good Bye, Ibykus ?

 

 

Green, green, it's "green" they say, ...

 

WOB 

Unusual

 No Haiku"

It is in the stars:

 The comet, Lemmon, is obvious in the middle. However, there is a cluster of 10 trails

to  the  left of the comet and again  3 in the lower right of the image.

 

Then in this image there are a couple of trails left/south of the comet and a burst to the right - near the edge of the trees:

 All this is happening on a single night, Sunday October 26.3 exposures, less than 45 seconds:

 

Some - most - must be satellites.

 Pollution?

 WOB 

 

PS There are a couple of "reasons" for thinking these are satellite trails seen low in the west and not in the field with comet Swan higher up where they are more likely to be in the Earth's shadow.

The similarity in brightness then would be  expected for objects of the same size and orbit

like the Starlink datellites. They are also launched in "bunches and require time to disperse. 

Meteors in the evening have to overtake the earth leading to short trails.  They would not be expected to be homogeneous in brightness and trail length.

 

Some examples from the night before where the red bars are beside trails:

 Comet Lemmon is unmarked but plainly visible near the centre.

 

wobbily 

The next passenger, please step up ...

 It was raining quite heavily late in the afternoon:

 

 

Several 1000 cranes were observed flying west over Köln. The nest day the "Zeitungen"

newspapers reported 1000s of Kraniche  dead, Vogelgrippe

 

 H5N1

 Vogelgrippe  dort

Avian flu there and here -

Passenger Pigeons?

 

 Looking back in the mirror?

 

 WOB

Flights of fancy

 After last night - I mean watching a flock of Blue Jays fly around down town Toronto - I thought maybe something more relaxing:

 Sometimes in the excitement more than heads get turned:

 But then someone gets it right:

 There were 100s more on the ground, so many that estimates have to be corrected for multiple birds over-lapping in an image. Vicki thought 500-ish. I think more, maybe more than 800 to 1000. We did a traverse of some 6Km for these estimates.

 

WOB 

 

PS Sandhill Cranes for visitors. 

Lemmon Pie

 Lemon it is not.

Comet Lemmon is turquoise

And Boötes too.

#########################

 

The weather last night decided to clear after all:

 The bright star at the bottom between the pair of horizontal red lines is Arcturus, Then

Comet Lemmon, naked eye bright blue-green with a visible tail. Higher up

is a trail which I suspect is a reflection off one of the 50 or so Starlink satellites visible at any one time in twilight, 4th mag or so for many. 

The top red line points down, leftish to R CrB, the star that fortuitously brightened enough in 1967 for Vicki to identify regular or semi regular variability at near maximum light for her MSc.

Let us "zoom" in on the comet:

 

 

The night was not photometrically clear but the clouds do add to the drama:

 

And a finder chart as evidence:

 

 The streaks are from exposing on the sky for between 25 and 30 seconds - the Earth rotated that much leaving the star images trailed. The width of a star image is caused by atmospheric instability and the camera not being in perfect focus for all colours.

 

WOB