Midnight Christmas Eve

For more than 40 years, it has been my personal tradition to be outdoors
at midnight on Christmas. It doesn't matter which midnight, it's a busy
time of year, but I usually make both.
Tonight, I put on my heavy coat, a pair of heavy gloves, and
lowered the flaps on my old rabbit fur trooper hat. The local cable
said the temperature was 1 degree F, (minus 17 C,) and as I get older, I
seem to feel the cold more. Trudging out through the snow to the middle
of the field next to my house, I looked around the sky. Not a cloud in
sight, nor any sign of the moon. The stars hung still, with barely a
twinkle. I could see a bit of twinkling blue in Sirius, but most of the
dimmer stars seemed to just hang there, frozen. I walked out into the
field quite a ways, until the annoying light on a water tower to my
south disappeared behind a leg of the tower. A quick meteor shot south
out of Gemini between Orion and Canis Major. The night was quiet... no
traffic, no church bells, no barking dogs, and very little wind. I was
standing in a sort of white dish... in some areas, rows of corn stubble
appeared above the snow, but for the most part, the field was smooth and
white. The night sky was pretty, but the stars seemed small and
white... almost like they suffered from the cold, but more likely my
eyes were poorly dark adapted due to the lights of my small town
reflecting off the snow cover. The stars of the ox bow of Eridanus
seemed kind of feeble over the perpetually lit church parking lot to my
west. ( Somehow, that's kind of ironic...) There was also most likely
a fair amount of moisture in the cold air, even if it didn't show as
clouds. I checked my watch... it had been Christmas for almost 30
seconds. I looked around some more... In places where I looked east
and southeast, out into the country, away from town, the horizon seemed
to blur a bit between the snow covered ground and the dark sky. The
trees on the horizon to my south, and pin oaks around my house to the
west showed mainly as soft, featureless, outlines tonight, black against
the dark sky. I looked around the sky... Saturn was the only planet
visible tonight, below Leo's haunches low in the East. I turned around,
and looked for the Andromeda Galaxy, but I couldn't see it over the
lights of town. Our own Galaxy showed rather well, though. I followed
the dim winter Milky Way from Cassiopea, through Perseus, down past
Orion and Canis Major, and on down toward the horizon. By now, the cold
was getting to me. I watched a small plane make it's way from a point
just north of Sirius heading East on a trip toward Alphard, and then
started trudging back through the snow to the warmth of my house, It
was a pretty night... white snow and dark sky... but it was COLD out.
Time to head back inside.
A Merry Christmas to all of my astronomical friends!
Marty

Marty wrote:

For more than 40 years, it has been my personal tradition to be outdoors
at midnight on Christmas. It doesn't matter which midnight, it's a busy
time of year, but I usually make both.

A Merry Christmas to all of my astronomical friends!
Marty


As always my favourite post of the year...

Happy Christmas my colonial friend :-)

--
Gareth Slee
http://garethslee.com

Happy Christmas my colonial friend :-)
--
Gareth Slee

And a Merry Christmas to you, Jane, and Hannah, Gareth! In a few hours,
I'll have a beer at the inlaws in Nebraska, and I'll drink it to you!
That'll probably take a little explaining...

Marty

I wish I could compose a story as well as Marty!

Scary thing is, I'm the one that writes for a living...

- Marty's brother Lyle

Scary thing is, I'm the one that writes for
a living...
- Marty's brother Lyle

It's probably even scarier being Marty's brother...
Lyle's brother Marty