Archive for the ‘off-planet’ Category
places off-planet #3 – Halley’s Comet 1986
Halley’s Comet, first recorded by astronomers in 240 BCE, has been a regular visitor through the ages, although people did not realise they were seeing the same comet until astronomer Edmund Halley determined this in 1705. Halley’s Comet makes an elliptical orbit of the sun and returns to view approximately every 75 years. It was last seen in 1986. Halley’s Comet is composed of dust, ice water and other frozen gasses, and was described by astronomer Fred Whipple as a ‘dirty snowball’. Its nucleus is 15 km long, 8 km wide and 8 km thick; its tail is as much as 100 million km long!
We saw Halley’s Comet as a family, waking in the middle of the night, and driving to a nearby hill overlooking a big field with French Lake and its treeless wetlands in the distance. The night sky was overcast with a thin high-elevation cloud, so our view was not the best. However, to me, it was marvellous… a huge (relative to the size of the stars) ball of fuzzy light. My son can barely remember our watch on the hillside, all swathed in blankets. However, when it returns in 2061 and he is 78 years old, he will be able to say he saw it twice!
Photo from Wikimedia Commons, taken by Kuiper Airborne Observatory
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Halley’s 1987
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we choose a roadside watching place
beside a farmer’s field
across from the cemetery
few trees
few lights
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we set the alarm for three
coax one another
into the icy car
in awe for an hour
at the comet fuzzy indistinct
four fingers above the horizon
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too undefined, too faint
for the dirty snowball
they predicted
I scrape our breath from the window
I see it, says my son, only three
I think
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he sleeps between us until ten o’clock
his blanket a soft ball
pressed to his nose
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almost eighty
he waits for the return
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I saw it when I was only young
I think
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© Jane Tims 1997
places off-planet #2 – three comets
In my life so far, I have seen three major comets – Halley’s Comet in 1986, Hyakutake in 1996, and Hale-Bopp in 1997. There have been comets since then, I know, but I have always been asleep!
A comet is composed of a ‘nucleus’ of rock, dust and frozen gas, and a tail. The tail is formed when the gasses in the nucleus are heated by the sun and create an atmosphere or ‘coma’. The sun’s radiation and the solar wind cause the coma to flow away from the sun as a tail. Since the comet can be moving away from the sun, sometimes this means the comet moves in the direction of its tail!
How many comets have you seen?
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Comet
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from the Greek
koman
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to wear long hair
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© Jane Tims 1997
places off-planet #1 – watching the stars
For me, star-gazing is a warm-weather activity. The winter, although dazzling in its displays of stars, is too cold for my arthritic joints and the immobility of prolonged star study.
So, as May approaches, I am looking forward to spending some time outside, to locate some old friends in the sky and to meet some new sky-folk!
I am lucky to live in an area not overly polluted with night light. At our home, although trees make viewing sporadic, stray light from street and yard lights is not a problem. At our lake property, the surroundings are utterly dark and the sky is stunning, studded with stars.
If you want to do some stargazing, you need three things to get a good start:
- a star chart or a planisphere (a combination of a star chart and a viewer). My favourite planisphere is downloadable and printable, from the National Research Council at
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/education/astronomy/constellations/html.html
- a reclining lawn chair (so you can relax and your neck will not ache)
- a flashlight with a clear red cover (this is to prevent your eyes from becoming light-adapted as you check the star-chart).
Another helpful item, to see groupings of stars more clearly, or to see details of the moon:
- a pair of binoculars
Are you a stargazer? What are your favorite ‘tools-of-the-trade’?
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the search for wind
and stars
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these are not the winds I sought to stand in
I wanted a zephyr to ruffle the bluets in spring
a breeze to whip the silver wind chime to frenzy
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instead I cower from night moans
the rattle at the window
the street where a dust daemon lurks
near every wall, lifts the leaves
grinds them to powder
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I gaze at the skies
watch for Altair and Orion
the never- random pulse to signal man
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but all the lights in the night sky
are not stars
the moon who solemn watches
as his face is peeled away
the comet drawing scant thoughts across darkness
its tears a storm of falling stars
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I walk with sorrow
it rests behind the eyes
and cannot swell to tears
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the truth so simple
yet impossible to know-
you need only stand
and the hill will form beneath your feet
and the roaring shrink
to the breath of love across your face
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© Jane Tims 2012
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