Orçamento, Escorpião

"Olá gostaria de fazer a tattoo no mesmo tamanho da que está na foto, porém seria feita no pulso, o desenho também é o mesmo, um escorpião que é o meu signo por isso foi escolhido. Sem mais."

Lu: luanj3@gmail.com

A Little Lunar Physics

With my celestial gazing blotted out by the grey weather again last night, I turn to a bit of chat about astronomical angles with some solar/lunar synchronicity tossed in for leavening. As I am sure most of you know, but may not often contemplate, the moon has no light of its own. Earth's satellite is a reflective surface, what we see as the illuminated moon is completely solar energy cast back at us.

So when we see or don't see the new moon, it is because the moon is between the earth and the sun. All the light of the sun is on the far side of the moon, which contrary to what Pink Floyd is thought to have said, is not the dark side of the moon at all. At the other apex of earth/sun/moon alignment, a full moon occurs when the earth is between the sun and the moon with the full illumination of the sun on the earth facing moon countenance. The graphic below illustrates these facts of celestial physics. 

When the earth lines up exactly between the sun and the moon, we get a lunar eclipse and I would be remise if I did not remind you that this year on the winter solstice (Dec. 21st) there will be a total lunar eclipse visible in most of North America.

There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.

Pink Floyd Eclipse from Dark Side of the Moon

Orçamento, Peixe Agulhão Vela

"Gostaria da tatuar esse peixe, Agulhão Vela, mas não tenho muita noção de tamanho. Essa tattoo começaria com o rabo do peixe nas costas e terminaria com a cabeça na minha barriga, passando o corpo do peixe pela lateral da minha barriga a baixo da axila esquerda.

Moro em Guarulhos, São Paulo."

João: jh.gaioski@hotmail.com

Whether San Francisco Weather

The best-laid schemes o' mice and' men

Gang aft agley

Robert Burns

After several autumnal heat waves, true fall weather has arrived here in the Bay area. With the lowering to shivering temperatures comes overcast, undercast, fog banks and assorted sky-sea phenomenon. All of these have combined to make my celestial observations more or less muted the last forty-eight hours. The sun has set into high stacks of clouds the last two evenings, the moonset on Friday was an hour early into a high fog bank and last night there was nary a glow from behind the overcast. Today we awoke to grey with a smattering of gray. I was worried that the full moonset next weekend would be blotted out by the dawn but unless we have another change in weather patterns I will miss this highly anticipated week of solar and lunar settings altogether.

I did manage one shot of the setting sun just north of the golden gate narrows last night, you can clearly make out the Golden Gate Bridge. Hope that was not the last sunset this week.

Beauty I'd always missed

With these eyes before

Just what the truth is

I can't say anymore

Moody Blues

Nights in White Satin

That's Not the Moon

Last night marked the fifth night of close observation of the moon setting into or over San Francisco. One night was done without the aid of my powerful binoculars, I was out and the tripod would have seemed a bit intrusive. Last night was the closest we would get to a perfect quarter moon, it was officially and exactly quartered around 14:30 in the afternoon and our setting time last night over the City was 0:23.

I am a bit disappointed that I have not been able to successfully google pictures that do justice to the visuals I have seen. And I mourn one last time my own shortcomings in the telephoto/nocturnal camera arena. As always I will attempt to paint you a worthy image in words.

I also want to acknowledge my own, previously overlooked, lack of learning in the general area of astronomy. Each and every night I discover another phenomenon that sends me off asurfin' to uncover the physics of the heavens. I won't overburden you with each and every mote of new learning I uncover. I assume some of you know a lot more in this area than I do and many more of you do not want to wade through the formula, azimuths and ephemeris to "know" why the sky is just amazingly fascinating. 

As I said last night was a near perfect quarter moon but the previous evening (also fairly close to a quarter) I could clearly see the other facing quarter of the sphere. Instead of being slightly lighter than the dark sky, last night the dark quarter of the moon was precisely the same pitch as the sky. This meant the moon presented itself as a jagged edged illusion, as if the top half of the moon was not actually there, like the photo above. And while I watched the descent the oranging began. First the white slice became slightly dirty, then a few minutes later a perfectly hued hard taco shell loomed over the Transamerica building. Following the corn flour tan came the slow darkening towards burnt orange, but not without a new visual.

The low clouds over the City created a reflection of some kind, lines of orange would appear below the moon and slowly the two would melt together. At one point the detached line was a bit more red and dancing in the reflected heat of San Francisco. As the two merged it appeared that the lower edge of the setting moon had begun to flame and burn, as if it would need to quench itself in the Pacific.

The final setting was, as it has been for several nights, a complete distortion of the moon's crescent. Last night both the top and bottom tips of the quarter were lost in the over&undercast. Anyone peering through my magic glasses at that moment would have seen a large orange blob just above the buildings of the city. No one would have guessed this was the perfect quarter we had seen twenty minutes before. Finally, instead of descending behind one of San Francisco's many hills, a misty grey cloud rose up and consumed the orange and it was gone again until tonight

Cold hearted orb that rules the night

Removes the colours from our sight

Red is grey and yellow, white

But we decided which is right

               Moody Blues

"Late Lament" from Days of Future Passed

--

net photo - uncredited

M. Duchen Tattoo

Marcus Duchen é paulista e seu contato com as artes começou cedo, logo aos 17 anos, quando formou-se em desenho e Criação na Escola Panamericana de arte. Com muitas exposições importantes o então artista plástico obteve prêmios a níveis nacionais. Arquitetura e Urbanismo poi o próximo passo de Marcus ao formar-se em 2001.

A paixão pela tatuagem ganhou força em 2009, quando Marcus abriu o M. Duchen Tattoo, localizado em Minas Gerais na cidade de Alfenas. Marcus relaciona seus traços as linguagens pictóricas gerando assim um estílo próprio sempre presentes em seus trabalhos.

M. Duchen Tattoo

Telefone: 35 88554595
Endereço: R. Coronel Laurindo Ribeiro, 160, centro, Alfenas
E-mail: marcus_duchen@yahoo.com.br
Orkut: Mduchen Tattoo

Celestial Views

I'll put the photo credit up top when it's actually me, so yes that is my picture up there. That is the sky I woke to this morning and that sky will be the focus of my next series of posts. With apologies to my olde friend Lee, eastcoat Lee not southwest Lee, but with apologies to him and anyone else who has tired of my sky gazing... the next week or so will be an extended meditation looking out my window. In last Sunday's post (two down the scroll) I wrote about the moon setting into the skyscape of San Francisco last Saturday night; well, of course, it has done something similar but completely different every evening since. Each night the illuminated portion of the moon gets bigger, it was quartered last night. The hills and buildings of the City that are descended thru shift and the atmosphere, clouds and light change the images sliding through my view. 

What with the earth rotating, the moon setting later each night, the cloud cover shifting, the moon becoming fuller -- the show offers new celestial perspectives each and every night. Add to that the sunset continues to march south and has reached the north end of the Golden Gate narrows (and bridge), this all portents some really interesting sky viewing over the next week. 

The moonset timetable will require some late nights and dark mornings but if the last several days have been any indication it will clearly be worth the lost sleep. Besides there are a few sections of my current book that could use some dark of night influenced attention.

So don't call too early, I'm going deep nocturnal for awhile and together we will ponder the skies through my window.

I can see it all

From this great height

I can feel the sun

Slipping out of sight

And the world still goes on

Through the night

          Moody Blues

          "Sunset" from Days of Future Passed