Category Archives: Mineral

The Longest Night of the Year

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Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
–Emily Dickinson

Photo Credit: Larry1732 via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Larry1732 via Compfight cc

At 4:03 pm in the mountain standard time zone, where I live, the sun passed directly over the Tropic of Capricorn.  That was the moment when the North Pole was tilted furthest away from the sun, the winter solstice.

As I write this the last sunlight of the day brightens the clouds hanging low over the Jemez Mountains.  It’s a darker, quieter, slower time of year.  I try to pay closer attention to the details:  a  small drift of piñon pine cones scattered across the snow that fell last week, a cheery canyon towhee splashing in the heated birdbath.

I am always in a hurry to spot the first sign of spring, but here’s to taking a moment to appreciate the unique beauty of winter!

Rain and the Moon before Yule

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The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.
–Abraham Cowley

Santa Fe Rain Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Santa Fe Rain
Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Rain fell all day yesterday, a rarity in New Mexico. Overnight the sky cleared and when I woke  an almost-full moon was hanging low in the west in the pink light of morning.

The day was bright, fresh-scrubbed, chilly. A blanket of clouds nestled in front of the Jemez Mountains, but never moved any closer. To the north the Sangre de Cristos were dusted with a new layer of snow.

On one of the shortest days of the year,  this evening’s full long night moon  rose in the east at sunset and will  keep us company until it dips below the horizon at sunrise.

 

The Leonids

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One of my favorite things about November is the Leonid meteor shower.  It happens each year when Earth crosses the path of Comet Tempel-Tuggle.  That means shooting stars. Sometimes thousands of them, although this year’s prediction is for a much more modest ten to fifteen per hour.

Photo Credit: ikewinski via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: ikewinski via Compfight cc

The best time to see the meteors will be on Monday after midnight.  It will be cold–the forecast for Santa Fe is in the high teens, but it’s supposed to be clear and even the moon is cooperating.  Beautiful and full a couple of weeks ago, it’s now waning and by Monday night will be a crescent, putting out very little interfering light.

Everything you need to know about watching the meteor shower is in Deborah Byrd’s EarthSky.org post.  She recommends finding a dark place away from lights, lying back, and watching the sky for at least an hour.

Waiting for that first meteor to streak across the sky is the perfect time to look for one of my favorite constellations, Cassiopeia.  First, locate the Big Dipper and then use the two pointer stars in the cup to find Polaris, the bright north star.   Beyond Polaris is a group of five bright stars named for the Ethiopian queen of Greek mythology.  The grouping doesn’t look much like a queen or even her throne, as some claim, but much more like an M (or, a W in the summer when it is on the other side of the sky).

As much as I love stargazing I’ll still have to gear myself up for such a late night on a Monday.  Before the sun drops behind the Jemez Mountains I’ll position the chaise lounges on the portal for the best view of the sky and outfit them with blankets and pillows.  At midnight I’ll make mugs of hot chocolate just before Dave and I turn off all of the lights and go outside.  It will be cold, but I know from past experience that Byrd is right, “. . . even one bright meteor can make your night”.

NYC–The High Line Phase Three

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Friday afternoon, sunny and seventy degrees, no better time to check out the final phase of New York’s elevated park.   This time I remembered to wear comfortable shoes.

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

The newest section, between 30th and 34th Streets, was opened in September on the first day of autumn.  It curves around the rail yards heading west towards the Hudson River.  The New York Times captures the beauty and allure of the urban park in this story.

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Dave and I spent an hour or so admiring the views, checking out the flowers and grasses, trying to get the perfect photo.

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

The sun was low in the sky when we descended to street level looking for an uptown train to take us to the theater.

Return to NYC: a glass of water

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New York City’s water is number 31 on Time Out’s recent list of 50 reasons why it’s the greatest city in the world.    Tap water?  According to the list it’s because the water flows from reservoirs upstate and is almost lead-free, making it one of the country’s best-tasting waters.

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Photo Credit: P. Nixon

Jeffrey Steingarten, the food writer, in his 1991 essay “Water” concurs, claiming that if the water did not have to be treated with chlorine, “it would taste as delicious as anything from a bottle . . .”

In Steingarten’s story of his quest to find the perfect glass of water–one that  tastes like it was just drawn from a clear alpine stream–he describes his local tap water:

“My water is piped four miles down Fifth Avenue from Central Park, and after I’ve drunk my fill, it continues all the way downtown.  Chlorine is introduced at Ninetieth Street, and because it dissipates as the water travels, enough chlorine must be added uptown so that some is left to disinfect the people on Wall Street, who are probably drinking Perrier anyway.  In order that Wall Street may thrive, I must put up with water that tastes less perfect than it should.”

Yesterday afternoon I arrived in New York City with reservations for dinner at an Italian restaurant on East Twentieth. The first thing I ordered was water–not a bottle of the fancy sparkling stuff, but a glass of New York’s finest. Cold, clear, and refreshing with no taste of chlorine, and at a price that can’t be beat– the perfect start to a few days of vacation in the city.

Don’t Miss the “Super” Super Moon

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“. . .I looked out the window and it was the moon.  Big as a house! I never seen the moon so big before or since . . . ” Raymond in Moonstruck-1987

Tonight’s the night–the second of three super moons this year (the final one will occur next month, on September 9th).  With the earth and moon almost as close as they ever get in their  elliptical orbits the full moon will appear larger and brighter than normal.

August 8, 2014 Photo Credit: Eli Nixon

August 8, 2014
Photo Credit: Eli Nixon

If you wonder why you don’t remember hearing about super moons until just recently, this Earth/Sky post explains that it’s a relatively new term for a “fairly routine astronomical event” (it happens approximately once every 14 months).

“Cosmo’s moon” is what we call it at my house–the name that Raymond gave the magical light  that he saw from his bedroom window in the movie Moonstruck.

Step outside and look up . . .

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Photo Credit: `James Wheeler via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: `James Wheeler via Compfight cc

That’s the first tip on EarthSky’s top 10 tips for super stargazers–great advice for warm summer nights.

As a kid my family spent many vacations camping in the Rockies and my favorite time of day was always evening, sitting on a rock next to a campfire,  looking up at the star-filled sky.  After  Dad showed it to me once, it was easy enough to spot the Big Dipper, part of Ursa Major (the Great Bear constellation), from almost anywhere.  He took it a step further when he taught me how to use the last two stars in the dipper to point to Polaris, the North Star.  I have been fascinated with the night sky ever since.

There are lots of other great tips in the top ten–everything from noticing the phases of the moon to using binoculars to look at the Milky Way, but my favorite is included in tip five:  “You don’t need to know what you’re seeing to enjoy the view.”

Another thunderstorm is rolling in so I may not see much when I go outside tonight, but I’ll take a look–I might get lucky and catch a glimpse of the waxing moon or the red star, Antares.

Ansel Adams in Hawaii

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I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.
–Ansel Adams
Image by Ansel Adams Courtesy of the National Archives

The Grand Tetons  by Ansel Adams
Courtesy of the National Archives

Craggy, wild, majestic.  Looking at an Ansel Adams photograph makes me want to unearth my hiking boots from the back of the spare-room closet and climb the nearest mountain.

I had no idea what to expect from his Hawaiian photos–taken in the 40s and 50s.  Of course, there were a few of volcanoes and crashing waves, but this was the one that I went back to look at more closely, to contemplate.   The figure of a man carved into a slab of rough lava rock, the indentation drifted full of kiawe leaves–entitled Petroglyph, outlined in kiawe leaves–represented to Adams the synthesis of the ancient and the new that he found in Hawaii.

The kiawe tree (Prosopis pallida), according to the U.S. Forest Service’s website, was introduced in 1828 by Father Bachelot, the first Catholic priest in Hawaii.  He started the tree from a seed carried with him from Paris and planted it near a church in Honolulu.  Within twelve years the offspring of his sprout had become the most common shade tree in the city and were quickly spreading to the other islands.  Today kiawe trees cover thousands of acres across Hawaii.  All  are descended from the priest’s original plant.

Kiawe tree at A-Bay By: P. Nixon

Kiawe tree at A-Bay Beach
By: P. Nixon

Adams took his photo near Kawaihae on the west coast of the island of Hawaii less than 15 miles north of the Anaeho’omalu Beach where, today, this kiawe tree shelters a colony of cats.

The exhibit, Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams:  Pictures of Hawai’i, will be at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe through September 17th.

Lunar Eclipse

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Lunar Eclipse August 2007 Photo Credit: Matt Binns via Compfight cc

Lunar Eclipse August 2007
Photo Credit: Matt Binns via Compfight cc

Yesterday morning I woke to snow and overcast skies, but by midnight when earth’s shadow began to darken the moon it was clear and chilly, 32 degrees.  I had a great view from the front porch and watched until the moon was completely eclipsed. Throughout, the star Spica shown brightly next to the moon and Mars was high overhead.  I’m a little groggy this morning, but it was worth it.

The darker the moon got, the more the sky came alive with thousands of stars. Just before I came indoors I noticed  three stars lined up horizontally, the claws and head of Scorpius, just above the southern horizon, another sign that summer is coming.

Wonders of April: Mars and Mexican Wolves

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Snow is in the forecast this weekend for New Mexico, but the lilac bushes are full of buds and the temperature reached seventy degrees earlier this week.  Summer is inching closer each day.

In the meantime, April offers a great view of Mars and a new wolf pack in the Apache National Forest.

Earth and Mars to Scale Photo Credit: Bluedharma via Compfight cc

Earth and Mars to Scale
Photo Credit: Bluedharma via Compfight cc

On April 8th, last Tuesday, the sun and earth and Mars lined up.  The orbit of Mars around the sun takes about twice as long as earth’s so this opposition of Mars only occurs  once every twenty-six months. For a few more days as the sun goes down, Mars will rise in the east and will be overhead by midnight.  In the morning as the sun comes up, Mars will be setting in the west. The red planet is easy to spot since it is the brightest object in the sky, except for the waxing moon.

Photo Credit: James Zeschke via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: James Zeschke via Compfight cc

In another rare occurrence, a pair of wolves was released on April 2nd in Arizona, part of the Mexican Gray wolf recovery program.  The special thing about these two wolves is that the male, M1290,  was born in the wild in 2012 and his mate, F1218,  was born in captivity.  The two were paired after the male was trapped earlier this year and have spent the breeding season together in captivity.  If all goes as planned, M1290’s experience growing up in the wild will  help them establish a territory, dig a den (if the female is pregnant), and hunt deer and elk.  When F1218 does give birth to a litter, she will  bring new, much needed, diversity to the gene pool of the wild population.  The Arizona Game and Fish Department filmed the release of the pair, now known as the Hoodoo Pack.

Dark clouds gathered over the Jemez Mountains this evening and the air cooled quickly, no view of Mars tonight.   As I watched from the kitchen window,  the storm moved closer and I thought about M1290 and F1218.  So much depends upon their ability to learn quickly how to live wild.  But tonight they are just two wolves, eyes shining, ears tuned to every sound, running through the ponderosa pines and Douglas firs of the dark, quiet forest..

For more news and information about the Mexican gray wolf recovery program check out this website.