Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Desert Morning...

Yesterday morning was a desert morning to remember.  Despite being almost June, the temperature was 34°F when I went out for my 3:30 am walk with our dogs.  There was no moon in the sky, and when I first went outside I could see only the very brightest stars.  Within a few minutes, though, I could see many thousands of them – along with one of the brightest displays of the Milky Way I have ever seen.  I walked a little further than I usually do, down past our gate, just to get a clear view to the southeast, where the Milky Way descended into the horizon.  It was simply stunning – arcing from the southeast straight overhead into the north.  Details of shape and texture that I'd never seen before leapt out at me as my eyes continued accommodating to the darkness.  Beautiful!

The dogs, of course, couldn't possibly care less about the Milky Way.  As I stumbled along with my face toward the sky, they were noses-down, deciphering all the visitors to our yard last night.  All four were on leashes, and as they wandered about me, randomly, they tied their leashes into a very impressive knot.  At one point, a sound off to our right caught their attention, and all four simultaneously lunged off in that direction.  Four dogs pulling in the same direction is right at the limit in terms of my being able to stand upright.  They dragged me off our driveway about 20 feet into our yard, until their attentions were grabbed by something else.  When they're each doing their own thing, the vector sum of the forces they impose on my arm isn't very large (lots of cancelation!), so they're easy to control.  But when they all decide to go the same way, I'm in trouble...

I finally got them back to the driveway, and (carefully) resumed my skygazing.  It made me remember Jim Lovell in Apollo 8, describing how bright and beautiful the Milky Way was as they were halfway between the Earth and the moon.  I'd like to see that...

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