LUNAR CYCLE

LUNAR CYCLE

The lunar cycle is twenty-eight days

Approximately

Twenty-eight days

From new moon to new moon

Standing on a deck awaiting the dawn

Where will the sun rise - a man asked

I told him that the moon’s crescent

Always points towards the sunrise

I don’t think so - he said

Yesterday’s sunrise was off

The other side of the boat

Then he crossed to the far rail

Every lunar cycle needs two weeks

Approximately

Just fourteen days

From new moon to full moon

About one week each from

Full to half (waning)

From new to half (waxing)

And one more week back to full

I watched the sun rising over

The River Nile because no matter

Where the boat is - the moon’s crescent

Always points towards the sunrise

The lunar cycle is twenty-eight days

Approximately

The lit side of the moon

Always points towards the sunrise

I sometimes wonder about that man

How he dismissed my knowledge

I imagine he runs a company earning

Several times more than me a year

People do sometimes get confused

I remember trying to demonstrate

Once why the moon looks different

Because of relative positions of objects

The lunar cycle is thirteen years

Approximately

In that time it will cover the entire sky

Never being in the same place twice

I put a torch on a cupboard

In a darkened room and by orbiting

A tennis ball around their head

Showed them the phases of the moon

For that to work properly

You have to simply imagine

That your head is the earth

Your head representing the entire world

The lunar cycle is twenty-eight days

Approximately

Twenty-eight days

From full moon to full moon

MAWH, February 2018

THE MORNING MOON MAY NOT BE VISIBLE

THE MORNING MOON MAY NOT BE VISIBLE 

The morning moon may not be visible

Feast with your eyes whilst you still may

As it balloons through the evening sky

Painting bright yellows amidst the grey

Blankets close above its pale silver head

Time’s chariot whisking it so far away

Shying away from poised eyes and lenses

Night’s ruler finds its natural solution

Bringing viewers frustrating consternation

Much like that untelevised revolution

The morning moon may not be visible

The morning moon may not be visible

The morning moon may not be visible

As the dark night’s curtains softly twitch

Exposing moonlight or streetlamp glows

Rules of nature now reveal one tiny hitch

Night-time’s brightest light hides coyly away

Refusing blankly to let others scratch their itch

Yearning desire unfulfilled despite glances

Concealed by darkness as a new day pounces

Down below the world waits pricked up poised

Your inner tannoy crackles and announces

The morning moon may not be visible

The morning moon may not be visible

The morning moon may not be visible

A heavenly overnight lover no longer there

Leaving us cuckolded by other hemispheres

Scrabbling under blankets for its underwear

Slipping away before the day commences

Half-mooning in and out of paned night air

With promises to return for future dances

Hiding behind dawn’s misty curtain quivers

So spanking new to be barely there at all

Waxing waning through quarters it slivers

The morning moon may not be visible

The morning moon may not be visible

MAWH, Feb 2018

SUPERMOON 2018

SUPERMOON 2018

One-hundred and fifty years

Awaiting a miracle

January ends

Under Derbyshire cloud

Beneath pelted sleet-torn skies

A super red blue blood moon

Rose invisibly

Cloaked by Derbyshire cloud

Punching but never winning

Searchlights probe these darkened skies

Against the lost moon

Piercing Derbyshire cloud

Waiting at Central Station

Beyond glowing burning clouds

A glimpse a glimmer

Shines through Derbyshire cloud

Watching Winterwatch later

A sudden sky-cleared miracle

Around eight-thirty

Parting Derbyshire clouds

So soon the clouds refolded

A memory of moonshine

Lingering beyond

Glowing Derbyshire cloud

A silhouette flits over

The dark shape of an owl

Charcoal black against

Slate grey Derbyshire cloud

The following icy dawn

Moon winking a bleary eye

The morning after

Hanging over Manchester

Photography set aside

It’s about encouraging

People to look

Up at Derbyshire skies

MAWH, Feb 2018

MOON, SATURDAY 080717

Actually, I was rather chuffed with this one, taken on my evening walk on Saturday. After months of taking photographs of the moon, I do think this might be the most technically competent one that I've ever managed.

Heading back down the hill after watching the sunset and the moon rise between 9.00 and 9.30pm, I ran into a bloke with a camera and tripod and passed a cheery "Nice to see someone doing it properly!" and he replied with a cheery "I'm really here looking for Barn Owls..."

Now, I've been heading up that particular hill for a while now and, whilst I had been told there were Barn Owls about, I never really expected to see one as I lack the patience to wait, and worry about being out too late in the darkness of country lanes, so I mentioned that someone had told me that they were possibly roosting in the quarry, chatted a little about the Tawny Owls which we had seen and heard, and went on my way.

Happily, I still had the "big" lens on the camera, the one which I seldom take out as it's so heavy, and I'm rarely that successful with it as I don't lug a tripod about most of the time. It's a relatively cheap one, too, so the glass isn't all that great, but it serves its purpose.

Nevertheless, as I approached home, I decided to use a handy drystone wall as a makeshift tripod, and try for one or two last shots before heading indoors, just as an aircraft did that rare thing of lining up perfectly with the full moon from the spot I was standing and, given that I had about two seconds to take the shot, I was rather pleased with the resulting shot, especially as so much of it was actually in focus.

By the way, the next evening, walking down the hill after photographing another sunset, fully aware that it was too early and getting far too cloudy for the full moonrise on the 9th of July (about 10.10pm in our neck of the woods), I rather unexpectedly and astoundingly spotted this...

MAN ON THE MOON

Neil Alden Armstrong

August 5th 1930 - August 25th 2012

Apollo 11 Launched: July 16th 1969

Arrived Tranquility Base: July 20th 1969

Time Eagle spent on lunar surface: 21 hours, 36 minutes, 21 Seconds

Time of lunar EVA: 2 hours, 36 minutes, 40 seconds

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" July 21st 1969 02:56 UTC

Apollo 11 splashdown: July 24th 1969

Hero, Astronaut, Legend.

MOON OVER SF

Just a brief bit of nonsense today because the thought attached to these words was a very simple one that needed little embellishment, although, as this is only the first paragraph, I may come to regret that sort of “up-front” boldness and certainty…

I was out driving a few nights ago, heading out for the evening (yes, I know…) heading towards the brilliant orange of the setting sun when I spotted the most beautiful full moon rising in my rear-view mirror…

Sorry, I’ve just read that last paragraph back with my “innuendo glasses” on…

I may have to start all over again.

The full moon was suspended in the sky over the mountains which were still glinting with snow after our sudden, unexpected early-April cold snap. Naturally, because I was heading out to attend something “social” I didn’t have my camera with me (I’m not that kind of networker…) and so another one got away…

Anyway, whilst it was a beautiful sight, it made me realise that it is already a whole month since I was trying very hard (and not terribly successfully) to get a decent photograph of the full moon as it was over the skyline of south San Franscisco when I opened the curtains of the hotel in the morning during which we were due to fly home.

A whole month and I’ve barely told you anything about it at all and yet the memories are already starting to fade as the day-to-day routine of my ordinary life shuffles my braincells around.

One whole lunar cycle and the world has continued to turn and turn again and moved on with so many of my tales untold.

Anyway, this is the moon as it was a month ago, hanging in the sky on that slightly forlorn morning, speaking as it does of holidays over, lives heading back to normal, and happy days being consigned to history.

The moon as I saw it over my home town the other night was a thing of beauty and something that should have made me feel blissfully happy, but that sense of loss is what also made it make me feel sad at the same time.

“Into each life some rain must fall...”, “Every silver lining has a cloud...”, “Sadness is happy for deep people…”

“Happiness tinged with a hint of sadness...” It could be that we’re getting closer to finally discovering what life in Lesser Blogfordshire is all about.

Well, if you generally ignore the “happiness” part…

DISTRACTIONS

Daily life can be chock full of distractions, which is usually a good thing. We’ve all seen recently what happens if people get too bored and decide that they would rather make everyone else as “poor” as they consider themselves to be rather than finding something useful to do. It’s always depressing to see those people who consider themselves to be impoverished strutting about flashing their bling and waving expensive phones about and mentally comparing them to the kids in real poverty I saw on the streets of Cairo last year getting simple pleasure from jumping in a canal at the end of the day.

There are children in schools in Africa and Asia who are wearing positively beaming smiles and proudly sporting the crispest of uniforms when they are given an opportunity to get themselves an education in an actual school when it opens up near them. These are not schools filled with computer screens and the latest schoolbooks, often they are just a teacher and a chalkboard armed with little more than a piece of chalk and their knowledge, but those kids are wise enough to know that going there to listen and learn might just make enough of a difference to their lives to mean that they can go on to live their lives protected from the poverty they grew up in because of their own sheer hard work.

The sad thing is that if they manage to get themselves into a position where they can move to a country like England, they’ll probably get mugged, or get a load of racial abuse from people considering themselves to be “better” than them.

Strangely enough, England is still mostly a rather great place to live. Anywhere that can still have its balloon festival or put on a five day Test Match in two of the cities hit by the week’s outbreaks of violence within a couple of days, and can summon enough indignant citizens to get out of their houses to go and help sweep the streets cannot be quite as doomed as we might have thought. I have, quite rightly, made many observations over the years about the parallels with the fall of the Roman Empire that we can see every day if we know where to look, but the Visigoths aren’t quite winning the battle for civilization yet.

Of course, the balloons and the cricket might only be distractions too from the main problems, but they can’t half be entertaining ones. Whilst it is rather marvelous to see the England (and Wales) Cricket Team finally looking as if they know how to actually play the game after the sport’s own “forty years of hurt”, my main source of entertainment from the Test Matches still comes from the wacky world of TMS, which manages to be one of my own happier distractions during the summer at least. During this (third) match at Edgbaston they really have played a blinder, especially with the almost comic genius of announcing to Geoffrey Boycott an anagram of his name: Grotty Coffee Boy.

The loaded silence was exceptional.

The TMS commentators range in age from 51 to 71 (looking that up was another distraction)  and are pretty much all outside the accepted age seen on out television screens, so we must be very grateful to whatever broadcasting gods manages to save them for radio, although, because there has been a surprising amount of play despite the rain and rioting, we have been a little deprived of the true genius that seems to happen during those long days where play is just a slight possibility but not actually happening, and their brains are truly racked to keep the airwaves burbling. Many may prefer the more modern cold ruthlessness and partiality on display by the summarisers like FEC Michael Vaughhan, who comes from a later era of sportsmen (and is only 37), but that doesn’t sit very well with me. Give me Henry Blofeld’s descriptions of “a smashing cover drive going like a tracer bullet” and “a rather startled pigeon on the outfield” over that sort of thing any day.

Of course, having looked them up I now find myself worrying about their ages, realizing that this kind of genuius in inevitably finite, and their health. Reading about Aggers suffering from Dupuytrens Contraction rather upset me yesterday, especially as he remains such a cheerful sounding soul, but then I also found out that Graham Gooch had a finger amputation because of it which seemed exceptionally sad.

Those distractions. They do make you find things out, don’t they?

Finding things to fill my spare time not only feeds my “media disease” which leads to me trawling around for information like that at ridiculous times of the day, but also seems to feed my “stuff disease”, too. Leave me alone with a keyboard for any length of time and, after composing another string of pointless words for the world to disregard, I will go and order yet another book, despite the house being already full up to the brim with them and a piled up backlog of potential reading that really should provide me with enough distraction to keep me amused from here to doomsday, or whenever the Visigoths come to ransack the place should turn out to be.

The latest is one that had been in a pending “awaiting stock” state for two years now. I found a cheap used copy on AbeBooks instead and am now waiting for it to chug its way through the international postal network and reach me. It’s another book about the moon (as if I didn’t have enough already), but the really interesting thing about (hopefully) finally tracking it down was the Amazon review I read by one of those “Moon landings all faked” people. Hilarious! And final proof, if it were needed that too many of us have too much time on our hands and really, really need to find those distractions.

FROM LUNAR SEAS TO LUNACY

I’m sure that much of this will be common knowledge to all of you wise old Astro-owls out there, but these tidbits and nuggets came as news to me.

I hope you enjoy sharing them.

The book I’m referring to is, of course, basically a moon miscellany, and contains much, much more of these kinds of things, but these were some of the ones I most enjoyed finding out about, and I thought that it would be most appropriate to put them in a list format.

"The Book of the Moon"
by Rick Stroud

Ten things I learned from reading “The Book of the Moon” by Rick Stroud and one thing I still had to check up on the facts about despite it seeming blindingly obvious:

1. The lunar ‘seas’, or Maria, are evidence of long ago volcanic activity and are mostly made up of lava. They are where the largest disturbances due to mass concentrations (or ‘mascons’) of high gravity occur on the moon’s surface. It is still unknown what causes the mascons, although they did affect some of the readings on the equipment aboard the Apollo missions, but it is suspected that it might be due to asteroid fragments buried deep beneath the lava or just by the lava itself, although not all the areas of volcanic activity contain them.

2. Biodynamic farming does sound a lot like witchcraft, with its references to sowing seeds at moonrise according to the appropriate zodiac sign of the plant you wish to grow (apples are seeds and thus fire signs, for example, and therefore should be planted when the moon is in Aries, Leo or Sagittarius in the Sidreal “of the stars” 27.3 day  cycle) and harvesting at moonset, and burying powdered quartz in a cowhorn for the summer to attract and magnify cosmic energy, but a lot of real scientists believe that there might be something in it.

3. ‘Mawu’ was the name of the most powerful goddess of the Fon people of Western Nigeria and Dahomey in Africa, which might very well explain some of the odder links that typing MAWH into a search engine might give you. She is associated with joy and fertility (both things that unfortunately are not cornerstones in the day-to-day life of Lesser Blogfordshire) and, ironically brings the night and the cool air, both of which are associated with wisdom and age. Hmmm, perhaps I need to change my name… Her twin brother is apparently Liza, the Sun God and an eclipse is what happens when he’s making love with his sister (and you thought EastEnders could go into some dodgy areas, relationship-wise…).

4. The Metonic cycle measures the time it takes for the moon to reappear in exactly the same spot in the sky. This takes apparently 6940 days, or about 19 years and is named after Meton, a Greek philosopher although the Babylonians had also known this centuries earlier. The nearest point that the moon gets to the earth (the perigee), is 221,468 miles, and the furthest away it gets (the apogee) is 252,716 miles.

5. Despite worshipping both Sun Gods and Moon Gods, the Ancient Egyptians were not actually great astronomers. It interests me that, because, despite this, the relationship of the pyramids to position of the sun and the stars has fascinated certain people for many, many years.

6. The Soviet mission Luna 1 was the first man-made object to ever achieve escape velocity from the planet earth, but it missed the moon by 40,000 miles and went into solar orbit, technically becoming the first artificial planet, as well as having been the first artificial comet when it released a cloud of sodium gas nearly three quarters of a million miles into its flight. It still orbits the sun every 443 days and has been renamed Mechta, which is a Russian word meaning ‘dreamer’.

7. Luna 15 was launched three days before Apollo 11 and the mission happened simultaneously with the much more famous first landing of men on the moon. Eleven hours after Neil Armstrong made that historic “giant leap for mankind”, Luna 15 crashed into the Sea of Crises, thankfully nowhere near the first Apollo landing site in both space or time.

8. The Soviet space programme successfully retrieved moon-rock and returned it to the earth using a remote controlled lander during the mission designated Luna 16. Interestingly, a later mission, Luna 20, which drilled into an area in the lunar highlands, retrieved a one ounce sample which contained rock that was over three billion years old as well as a high proportion of both Aluminium and Calcium oxides.

9. The Russians developed the first (remote controlled) lunar rover, Lunokhod 1, which landed on the moon within Luna 17 on November 17th 1970 and operated relatively successfully for eleven months. The equipment was housed inside the body of the machine and the chamber containing it was heated by the radioactive decay of Polonium-210. Luna 21’s Lunokhod 2 rover also functioned well, thanks in no small part (and at the height of the cold war remember) to some high-resolution pictures supplied unofficially by NASA which helped to solve some early navigational problems.

10. The word ‘Zodiac’ is actually Greek and literally means ‘circus of animals’ which I suppose makes sense if you think about it, but I’d never really thought about it before, and maybe neither had whoever dubbed that murderer ‘The Zodiac Killer’ as ‘The Circus of Animals Killer’ really does not have quite the same ring to it, does it?

The thing that I felt that I’d better check was this: Does the moon look different from other points on the globe? Well, of course, it’s obvious. Yes, it does… but it took me a surprisingly long time to check this out and to be absolutely sure.

The view from Southern Hemisphere is opposite to the one I’m used to seeing in the night skies over England and is in fact upside down in relation to it, and the transition from crescent to crescent goes in the other direction. Yes, it was kind of obvious, but I still had to be certain. I thought I’d check up on the fact, despite how much sense it made to me in theory, because it’s quite easy to appear to be very ignorant about such things and it was interesting that at about a day after I’d been thinking about this, some shots taken of the moon over the desert in a documentary I was watching showed the waxing moon with the shadow at the bottom which rather proved it. If I’d not been thinking about this, I might not even have noticed.

I think that it must be very strange to get used to things being one way and then find yourself on the other side of the world where you don’t even recognise what the moon is doing. Once upon a long ago, when I was far away and missing my home dreadfully, I used to look up at the moon and think that the same moon was also looking down on those I was missing and I found that to be a great comfort. It is of course the same moon, but it’s not necessarily visible at the same time (or indeed the same way up) but it reflects its light upon us all just the same.

Of course, it’s always nice to know that it’s not just me who can be a little confused over what can seem blindingly obvious to everybody else. When I was on holiday last year, I used to sleep very badly and so I would head up onto the top deck of the boat to photograph the dawn. Occasionally, some of my fellow travellers would also be up there doing much the same thing. Among them were quite a few people who had been high-flyers in the worlds of industry and commerce and had many more achievements under their belts than I’m ever likely to.

However, I was slightly thrown by the chap who really didn’t seem to like my answer when he asked me which direction the sun was going to rise from. I pointed at the crescent moon and told him that if you think of the arc of the crescent as being like an arrowhead, then it must be pointing to where the sun is. I thought that it was obvious, but he drifted away to the far side of the boat, saying that he thought that couldn’t be right. It had risen on the other side of the boat yesterday…

The boat had, of course sailed since then, and was in a completely different place anyway, but the logic of that didn’t seem to strike him at all. I paused for a moment, slightly perplexed by this, and started to question my own logic as to where the light source providing the light which was striking the moon would be. Still, not long afterwards, the sun came up, just where I thought it should, and the day progressed as it should, and I was left to ponder upon matters of certainty and having the courage of my convictions.

How is it that, even when I know that I’m actually right about something, rare though these moments might be, I still need to apologise for it…? It would be appropriate at this particular juncture to refer this as lunacy. Is it really so much part of our modern culture that we don’t like to be thought of as being in any way ‘clever’ just in case someone thinks that you think that you are in some way ‘better’ than they are…? Sometimes, surely, if you just know something it’s just because you happen to, and it’s nice to share that with someone else and spread that knowledge around a bit… Hence my little list today.

Spread the word. The more we know about things, the better we all are for it.