peterography

Yesterday I took advantage of some recent tick-killing freezes to descend into the woods behind our house to cut firewood. A large red oak died last year, but had the courtesy to remain standing while its wood seasoned, before it fell recently so I could reach it with my bow saw. A chain saw would make much faster work of this but a bow saw cuts both pushing and pulling so it’s great upper-body exercise for all the opposing muscle groups in my arms, back, and chest. I also like its quietude - I can hear the birds and the deer and chipmunks all around me as I saw and I can start early in the morning without disturbing neighbors.

Later in the day I harvested my remaining apples. My wife and I have a tool used to change lighbulbs in our high ceilings - an extendable pole with a sort of spring-loaded basket for the bulb. This was perfect for picking high-in-the-tree apples and filling a utility bucket with them. After dinner I used some of the apples to make apple-cranberry crisp from a Jane Brody recipe I like.

Then I went to Westford, to the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB) site, to take more photos of Comet 17P/Holmes.

I’m not actually a member of ATMoB. I used to be, back in 1997, when I was shooting comet Hale-Bopp. So I felt a little guilty setting up in their field in pitch blackness at 10PM, surrounded by the disembodied voices of the real members, discussing variable stars and galaxies that they were looking at through fancy, expensive telescopes. No one said a word to me, nor I to them, as I set up my little old Nikon D100 and el-cheapo FJR equatorial mount.

The light pollution was only marginally less than at my house in Chelmsford but I did get a slightly better comet photo than a few nights ago . . .

I then tried to photograph M31 - the Andromeda Galaxy - but the automatic noise reduction feature in my geriatric Nikon D100 camera picked that moment to fail so I got a shot resembling what you might see in good binoculars or a small telescope - you can just make out the dust lanes, but that’s it . . .

. . . still, the thought that I’m seeing light from two and a half million years ago is thrilling. This was the Andromeda galaxy before there were humans. This was the Andromeda galaxy back when there were mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, and when the ancestors of camels trod the plains of North America. And I just took this picture of it last night.

I’ve never understood how anyone in this universe can stay bored for long. I assume most of my blog readers inhabit the same universe as I do, so don’t you agree that this is a damned interesting one, as universes go?

Take this exploding comet, for instance. Up until a few days ago comet 17P/Holmes was an obscure 17th magnitude snowball orbiting the sun at a distance ranging from about Mars to Jupiter, i.e., pretty far out there. Suddenly on October 25 it exploded, increasing in brightness by a factor of a million literally overnight. It’s easily seen now with the naked eye at prime time by anyone who just turns off their TV, goes outside, and looks up. Tonight I took a picture of it from my deck:

For the technically-obsessed, this was taken with a Nikon D100 at ISO 1000, using a Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 lens, 20 second exposure. That slightly dark ring around the center is not an artifact - it’s really there. The stars are slightly streaked because I was still adjusting my equatorial mount settings when a bank of clouds rolled in and spoiled the party.

This comet is just plain weird - its orbit is less eccentric than most comets; its behavior and appearance are way more eccentric. The usual wackos have been emerging from the web woodwork, suggesting that it’s the fulfillment of a Hopi prophesy, or positing that it’s an alien spacecraft uncloaking itself or experiencing a reactor core explosion.

But I have my own theory. Remember that witch from the Wizard of Oz - Glinda, the good witch of the North? She was never seen slumming it on a broomstick. Instead, she always travelled around in a bubble, and I think the resemblance is striking:

Now, I’m not making any predictions here; all I’m saying is that it might not be a bad idea to apply for membership in the Lollipop Guild.

You know,  just to be on the safe side.

Thank god the blog writers aren’t on strike. Where would we put the picket lines? Second Life? Except for football I don’t watch TV anyway so the Hollywood writers’ strike is no big deal for me. Maybe a long strike will encourage others to junk the boob tube, too, and get a life, even if it’s only a Second Life. (Boob “tube” is an anachronism these days - can someone suggest a more up-to-date alternative?)

My wife spent the weekend up in Orford, Canada at a chamber music conclave. I stayed in Chelmsford to face the remnants of Hurricane Noel by myself. The local Boston media breathlessly warned us to expect high winds, floods, and power outages. So on Friday I cleaned some junk off the top of my whole house generator. I then went to the store to stock up on essentials - beer and coffee – I couldn’t think of anything else I needed. In the end it was a big nothing so I took advantage of the weather to spread some pelletized limestone on my lawn, allowing the rain to wash it into the soil. There was no wind to speak of.

Without my wife to cuddle up to at night I decided to let my cats sleep in our bedroom. I awoke in the middle of the night with the Birman sprawled across my legs and our 20 pound Maine Coon wedged against my hip, leaving me pinned in place like some Gulliver trapped by furry Lilliputians. I wanted turn over but I didn’t want to disturb them so I stayed still. It was better than sleeping alone.