If you’d prefer the podcast format, click here.
Vol. 70, October 17th, 2023 Published a day early online
Misty Mountain Hop
Chasing the Sun Through Autumn
I only believe in Zeus when there’s an eclipse or meteor shower. Then he shows up, reminding me that I’ve forgotten a sacrifice of the neighbor’s bull. It’s cloudy for days, or rains buckets. How could it be otherwise?
Jokes about the Greek sky god aside, it does seem to pour whenever there’s something worth seeing. Saturday’s solar eclipse was no exception.
Steady rain ushered in a soggy day, but the weatherman said there might be hope for clear skies two hours to the southwest.
Boots laced, solar telescope packed, I stepped on the gas and peered through the gloom. Autumn leaves blazed in the rain as Bach played on the radio.
The road wound through ancient valleys and carved through rock. The rain eased, ragged clouds scudding along the heights where oaks reluctantly turned from green to russet.
Blue skies returned, and my wheels rolled onto the Wilderness Road for the first time, that fabled path stretching west to the Cumberland gap and those ghostly footsteps of Daniel Boone.
I stopped at Radford University to share eclipse views. What a season for wanderings!
Photo courtesy of Dr. Rhett Herman, Radford University
Delicious!
The moon (dark circle) takes a bite out of the sun during the partial eclipse. Note the tiny speck on the sun. It’s a sunspot–cooler material the size of earth.
Josh took this photo through his scope with a cell phone.
Quote of the Week
“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” - T. S. Eliot
Happy Birthday, Jailhouse Rock
The iconic Elvis Movie premieres in Memphis, October 17th, 1957.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Autumn seems a perfect time to re-read The Hobbit. For a fun topic to investigate, try both reading it, and paying attention to the broader themes: transformation through adventure, etc.
Song of the Week
Brandenburg Concertos 1-6 (J. S. Bach).
Completed in 1721, these masterpieces of baroque music deserve regular listening.
Write to Us!
The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or JoshUrban@protonmail.com
Letters from Josh
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #156)
Appearing in the Altavista Journal: Late Night Radio–Pac Man Sun
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show. You should have heard ‘em at Radford. The clouds parted, the sun shone down...and everyone freaked out. We were lucky.
Saturday morning dawned gray. The rain slicked the roads in Lynchburg, set the autumn leaves ablaze in Bedford, drenched hopes in Charlottesville, and treated most of Virginia like a giant parade to well...rain on. A clear view of the sun became pressing.
“There must be a crack somewhere” I muttered the morning of October 14th, scanning the weather reports. A solar eclipse is rare, and worth driving for. Once you’ve seen the shadow of the moon, it gets into your blood. There’s no danger of werewolf contagion, but it turned into a huge nerd. (Well, maybe it’s not fair to blame the moon.) Radford looked promising.
I’ve never loaded a telescope in the rain before, but with fingers crossed and faith in the weatherman, it was southwest bound to the mountains.
It rained, and rained, and rained. Forest slipped by, soggy. The Peaks of Otter towered unseen in the fog. Finally, at the Botetourt county line, ol’ mister Sun showed his smiling face, playing peekaboo all the way to Roanoke and points south. Anything can be an adventure. Oh, how the raggedy clouds caught the tops of the steep mountains, as all the tiny cars on I-81 hurtled south through the mist towards the promise of clear skies.
And there they were, blue, wild, fresh, and there was Radford University, with a party to crash.
“Hey guys...I brought a telescope. Can I set it up?” (Nobody’s stolen my lunch money yet. I don’t know why.)
Now, it might seem like an eye-meltingly bad idea to look at the sun with a telescope, but since nobody had taken the aforementioned lunch money, I bought a special filter that made it safe (think specialized welding glass).
“There it is!” The sun looked like a moldy orange, speckled with planet-sized sunspots (cooler material resting on the surface). It had a dent, like God walked into one of those fancy home decor stores, idly picked it out of a bowl of other stars, slipped, and dropped it on the floor, sending a perfumed saleswoman over to scowl and put it back and remind everyone to “Look, don’t touch, please.”
But it wasn’t a dent. It was the moon, starting to cross in front of the sun as all the orbits lined up for one of nature’s finest shows. As the hours passed, the silhouette of the moon made the sun look crescent–or sort of like Pac Man. The clouds drifted by, often blocking the view. But when they cleared, we all freaked out in proper style. WOW! (Check out the photo from my phone held to the telescope.) It was a good reminder to keep looking up.
Clear skies to you,
Josh