Happy Friday!
What a vivid morning. The sun, well up over the mountain, blazes through the branches of the pecan tree. Vapors swirl off the lower trunk as the beams warm the world. The bluish frost in the field is resolving to go out in style, sublimating into rhinestones before dripping back into the earth.
Eggs dance merrily in the pot as they boil, and the Cattleya orchid I’ve had for fifteen years is blooming a vibrant magenta on the counter. A deep breath detects a faint scent of spruce from the small Christmas tree behind me, and over all of this, the sky is a cloudless robin-egg blue.
Finally.
It’s been gray and rainy for oh, seventeen years, it seems. (Time moves strangely around the holidays. Took me a decade to pick out Christmas cards yesterday.)
Friday posts are dedicated to my blind friends and colleagues. I’d like to share an alt-text astronomy observation of a faint galaxy in Pisces, or perhaps an early report on the Orion Nebula, but…It’s been cloudy.
Come to think of it, I’ve been wanting to write about a starless night, though.
Facts First
If the spirit of alt text is to let the blind reader see exactly what I’m seeing, simple facts must come first.
And if the blind astronomer would like to know exactly what I see most of the time…
A post must be written about clouds. In this piece, I’ll start with facts, and go to fancy, trying to get both the objective and subjective across. (Let me know if you have any feedback.)
Thursday, Daytime
The day was gloomy and cold, with patches of rain. The thermometer hovered around 32 degrees. “Leaden” is the lazy artsy term to describe the color of the sky.
What I mean when I use that cliché is: It was a medium-gray, uniformly colored as far as the eye could see, with the occasional darker gray splotch of a denser cloud. It gave off a chilly, unpleasant feeling, not dangerous like a tornado sky, but just - “there’ll be no comfort today, and you’d best run along inside.”
I spent 45 minutes on hold yesterday. The flat tone of “please listen closely, our menu options have changed” are a good parallel of the lack of joy and warmth in a gray rainy sky in December.
Usually skies like this are nearly featureless. However, the “cloud ceiling” (height of the clouds above the earth) was low. Shaggy bits of gray clouds scraped along the ridgeline of Long Mountain like batting from an old blanket or fur from a small dog brushing the floor.
The temperature was right at freezing, and the clouds were depositing an icy coating on the trees, making their branches glitter a watery blue-white on the mountain.
Old Man Winter must have been itching to paint a chilly picture. The clouds seemed like paintbrushes. Somebody needs to tell him about Bob Ross, and painting happy trees.
I slogged through the rain and cold all day, brightened by Christmas shopping and music.
Thursday, Evening
A sunset on a clear day is a marvelous event. The light changes both intensity and color, the animals react, clouds are transformed into fanciful shapes high above, and soon, the stars come out.
On Thursday’s rainy day, the whole thing fades. The colors stay mostly the same shade, although a touch more blue before the light vanishes entirely. A few bedraggled sparrows cheep sadly near the woodpile, and then flutter off to roost for the night.
Inside, I’m on hold. The voice tells me to listen carefully to the menu options. It sounds like the sky.
The light fades entirely. Peering out through the window, I can just make out a few red lights on top of Long Mountain. It’s the communications tower, warning airplanes not to hit it with a slow, steady blink.
The night closes in. I find it cozy. The telescopes stand in the corner, dreaming of starlight. If I brought one out now, and looked through the eyepiece, I’d see…something. The lights of the town light up the clouds ever so slightly, rendering them a dull gray with the faintest hint of orange. But the scopes can’t punch through clouds, so they stay in the corner.
High up on the mountain, the tower keeps watch, all through the rainy night. Maybe tomorrow night will be clear, with mighty Orion climbing up on his hunt, and Mars glowering in the east. But now, it’s time for sleep.
Treasures from Earth
Cloudy nights are so common, there’s even an online astronomy community with the same name. People buy and sell gear, talk shop, and plan observations. I love it. But, a real cloudy night has it’s own charm, too, best felt and heard, rather than seen. Owls, frogs, crickets, dogs in the distance, and even the occasional coyote can be detected. The night wind inspires my imagination, too. So, if the stars aren’t in the cards, there’s much Earthly beauty to be appreciated in other ways.
Speaking of beauty, here’s Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto number 4 in G major, BWV 1049. The video description is excellent. From The Netherlands Bach Society’s channel:
Bach is continually misleading us. Which instruments are the real soloists? Initially, the lead is taken by the two recorders, but later it appears that the violin is the soloist. After the next refrain, the two recorders take over again, but they are soon trumped by the violin, which steals the show in a whirlwind of dizzying notes. And so it continues.
Enjoy!