Venus and Mercury are Alright Tonight


Venus and Mercury off my front porch tonight about 9 p.m. Mercury is the dimmer object located about 4 o'clock from the much brighter (though more distant) Venus.

Last night Jennifer and I spent a long time after the sunset watching the stars slowly come out as the orange glow dissipated into the dark, clear night. I knew Venus was the brightest object in our view to the west. I also knew the constellations Taurus and Perseus were out there too. I noticed a star that didn't seem to belong. Perhaps it was from a constellation I didn't know about. So, I checked the internet.

To my surprise, the star I was looking at near Venus was, in fact, the planet Mercury, which I have only consciously seen a few times my whole life. Mercury is usually low to the horizon and only visible for a few moments around sunset. You rarely get a good chance to see it.

But, three days ago Mercury reached its greatest point of elongation in the night sky. It is now partnered with Venus for the next couple of weeks. Mercury is roughly 80 million miles away tonight. Venus is about 140 million miles away. These distances vary, of course, depending on where the planets are in their respective orbits.

The feeling of these distances as a living experience rather than as just abstract numbers is something I've always connected with and is part of my fundamental attraction to astronomy. I see these planets with my naked eye as clearly as I would see a bird in flight or an oak tree on a distant ridge. The vastness of our solar system is a source of wonder to me.

So, tonight I took advantage of yet another clear twilight and snapped my first pic of Mercury.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Chatterley's Lover: An Intensely Sexy Read

Warning: The following post contains adult content .  You can not really discuss this novel without talking dirty. There are some smutty adult words here, all quoted from the novel reviewed. Read them responsibly. Long-time readers know that I try to maintain a certain health regime and lifestyle. Part of that is regular sex. There are numerous studies that indicate the health benefits of sex , the benefits to relationships, and to piece of mind. No need to revisit all that here other than to say that after practicing this for many years, I have discovered that in my mid-50's I am a more erotic person than I was as a college student or when I first married. The erotic is an accentuated part of my life. It inspires, motivates, entertains, and brings fulfillment. It can be a strong thread tying otherwise loose ends of life together in a holistic fashion. For years I have read erotic novels and watched erotic films (both pornographic and artsy). As you know I also enjoy read
Read more

A Summary of Money, Power, and Wall Street

For a long time I have admired the PBS series Frontline for its outstanding reporting.  On May 1, the program aired the second-half of a huge four-hour documentary on the origins the Great Recession entitled Money, Power, and Wall Street .  The situation obsessed me and my blog posts back in 2008 – 2009.  Economically, nothing compares to it in my lifetime.  In this post I will attempt to summarize this superb four-part Frontline . Wall Street is the largest sector of the American economy.  It is almost double the size of America's manufacturing sector.  Ultimately, the 2008 financial crisis and resulting Great Recession cost the world economy $11 trillion dollars.  This is how it happened. It all started at a ritzy weekend resort in Boca Raton, FL in 1994.  A group of young bankers from JPMorgan , were celebrating the success of the company's derivative portfolios.  Young, very bright minds, partying a bit and meeting in small conference rooms hatched a new idea . These
Read more

A Summary of United States of Secrets

Frontline is my favorite news documentary television program.  I do not watch every Frontline but I pay attention to its schedule.  Its in-depth coverage of the origins of the 2008 financial crisis was outstanding reporting and my review of its coverage is my most popular blog post ever . Last week, Frontline once again demonstrated its profound relevance and investigative integrity with a two-part documentary entitled " United States of Secrets ." This three-hours of television journalism blew my mind. " United States of Secrets " is better than any fictional political thriller any author could come up with.  It is a story of vast overreach of governmental authority, unconstitutional acts, and political lying by both the Bush and the Obama administrations. This is the story of how we as a society lost all semblance of privacy and due process of law. The National Security Agency (NSA) reads every email, every tweet, looks at every photo you upload to "t
Read more