Saturday, September 14, 2019

pseduo nebula

Very thin clouds blew in from the ocean tonight, and were illuminated by the just past full moon.  So I simply lay on my hammock with a pair of binoculars and had a look around.  It was actually good practice for seeing nebulae, since they too are mostly things without light reflecting the light of things which do.

I counted five sweeping arcs of cloud, each with a brighter leading edge curving in the same direction, to the same distant, hidden point.  The density of cloud thinned in some areas, and for a few minutes was able to see, for example, hints of the star crowds where the North American Nebula was supposed to be, around Gamma Cygni, and down the Swan's neck.  I found the Coathanger.  And Lyra just overfilling the field of view.

But the main show was a band of vapor trail, perhaps a half hour old, still thick but spreading, and drifting toward the moon.  With the moon out of the field I studied the billows and eddies of the cloud, and pretended it was a kind of Veil Nebula -- in fact it looked very like it as it glided over the moon, a substitute for 52 Cygni and the Witch's Broom.  Some kaleidoscopic colors reflected off the ice crystals.  As it moved further away it grew flatter and less detailed, hidden now by the angle of light and not its lack of existence.

And so the night will age, with gentle swells of cloud playing in the light of the moon.

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