Wonders of the Wild West
02/09/2008 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIzzie is sitting upstairs in her Sybil Space full of wicked witchy things and a window facing west. It is strategically located to avoid most of the glare from the evil new street light. We hates the nasty stinking thing.
So at present, it is the perfect spot for moon watching. Is now just gotten dark enough to see that the smiling slivery critter has got three freaky friends - a lovers' triangle almost. The brightest and brashest of the bunch is Venus. It's most likely Mercury in the middle at almost right angles to both Venus and Mars. Apparently, they'll be almost on top of each other next week. Must see if we can snaffle Uncle Vernon's binoculars for the occasion.
August has been the most amazing month for glorious sunny days and crisp crunchy cold nights. Perfect for following the antics of various celestial bodies.
Was out of luck with the solar eclipse. Even if the location had been right, it rained all day so would have missed out anyway. But the lunar eclipse on the morning of Sunday 17th was another matter. Got to see a good 40 mins of that. It was not particularly impressive - rather like seeing a whole month of moon motions fast forwarded into a few hours. The east was infinitely more interesting at 5 in the morning
But later in the day was the local university Open Day. Iz got all slushy and nostalgic. One of the highlights of the day was the astronomy exhibition with the campaign for this bit of Oz to get the square kilometre array telescope. There was lots of freebies including the local 2008 astronomy almanac full of all sorts of amazing facts and figures and pretty piccies. It's got the rise and setting times for the sun and moon and all the planets for every single day of the year plus all sorts of other esoteric and useful information.
Then there was National Science Week which meant lots more geekish things to drool over. After that was the sneak peak visit to King's Park. The official wildflower festival started yesterday - used to be the last weekend in September, then got made bigger and better over one week and now they've decided to just make a month of it and have no segregated areas with special displays and exorbitant admission charges
This part of Oz has the most absolutely amazing weeds and spring time is the best time to see them in all their glory
So it was lovely to meander about before the bus loads of tourists.
It's also the time of year to nose about in other people's gardens, to smell the roses and to plant our own weeds and seeds
Here's hoping that our second attempt at planting by the moon will turn out rather better than the first one last December.
This time, getting the basil, tomatoes and pumpkins started in September so they get a chance to grow before getting sizzled by the summer sun. And on the subject of sunshine - today is the first day since 15th April that we've clocked up 3 kilowatts of the stuff after hovering most of last month around the 2.5 mark. So winter is well and truly over.
It's supposed to be raining for the rest of the week so will not be visiting the park as planned but probably doing some more planting and pottering off to the city's Taiwanese 'vegie' market to get some fake pork and duck but most importantly of all - some very genuine moon cakes.
Izzie never misses a chance to celebrate a moon festival - well almost any - Ramadan is most definitely not on the Izzie list.
So at present, it is the perfect spot for moon watching. Is now just gotten dark enough to see that the smiling slivery critter has got three freaky friends - a lovers' triangle almost. The brightest and brashest of the bunch is Venus. It's most likely Mercury in the middle at almost right angles to both Venus and Mars. Apparently, they'll be almost on top of each other next week. Must see if we can snaffle Uncle Vernon's binoculars for the occasion.
August has been the most amazing month for glorious sunny days and crisp crunchy cold nights. Perfect for following the antics of various celestial bodies.
Was out of luck with the solar eclipse. Even if the location had been right, it rained all day so would have missed out anyway. But the lunar eclipse on the morning of Sunday 17th was another matter. Got to see a good 40 mins of that. It was not particularly impressive - rather like seeing a whole month of moon motions fast forwarded into a few hours. The east was infinitely more interesting at 5 in the morning
But later in the day was the local university Open Day. Iz got all slushy and nostalgic. One of the highlights of the day was the astronomy exhibition with the campaign for this bit of Oz to get the square kilometre array telescope. There was lots of freebies including the local 2008 astronomy almanac full of all sorts of amazing facts and figures and pretty piccies. It's got the rise and setting times for the sun and moon and all the planets for every single day of the year plus all sorts of other esoteric and useful information.
Then there was National Science Week which meant lots more geekish things to drool over. After that was the sneak peak visit to King's Park. The official wildflower festival started yesterday - used to be the last weekend in September, then got made bigger and better over one week and now they've decided to just make a month of it and have no segregated areas with special displays and exorbitant admission charges
This part of Oz has the most absolutely amazing weeds and spring time is the best time to see them in all their glory
So it was lovely to meander about before the bus loads of tourists.
It's also the time of year to nose about in other people's gardens, to smell the roses and to plant our own weeds and seeds
Here's hoping that our second attempt at planting by the moon will turn out rather better than the first one last December.
This time, getting the basil, tomatoes and pumpkins started in September so they get a chance to grow before getting sizzled by the summer sun. And on the subject of sunshine - today is the first day since 15th April that we've clocked up 3 kilowatts of the stuff after hovering most of last month around the 2.5 mark. So winter is well and truly over.
It's supposed to be raining for the rest of the week so will not be visiting the park as planned but probably doing some more planting and pottering off to the city's Taiwanese 'vegie' market to get some fake pork and duck but most importantly of all - some very genuine moon cakes.
Izzie never misses a chance to celebrate a moon festival - well almost any - Ramadan is most definitely not on the Izzie list.
