Part-time prevaricator
I went for a walk at noon. This time I remembered my water, which was good—it was hot out. I also took my camera.
I love lilacs. They’re my favourite flower. Their scent is one of the treasures of late spring. The only downside is their season is so very short.
I also spotted a painted rock along the 34th Street walking path.
It was a lovely night for the aurora. It’s too bad I was standing next to my car, broken down on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway, while I watched it.
Thanks to my lovely wife Kathleen who came and rescued me, and kept me company while we waited on a tow truck.
Nerdy details: all the photos were taken at 11mm, 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200 and edited (lightly) in GIMP. The panorama at the top is 3 photos stitched together with Hugin
In case you slept through my Saturday morning interview with Shannah-Lee Vidal—or you’re not in CBC Manitoba’s broadcast area—here’s how the story went.
Last night, Kathleen said to me, “I hear the aurora should be good tonight.” I checked the app on my phone that shows me the aurora data. Everything looked pretty good except the Bz value, which was about +17. (For a good show, you want the Bz to be negative. The longer it’s been negative, the better.)
Continue reading “Aurora, April 23, 2023”
One of my photos from the March 23rd aurora was the cover photo for this week’s Westman This Week section of the Brandon Sun.
I think that’s pretty neat.
I don’t know about you, but for me, lasagna[1]Especially the lasagna Florentine my dad taught me to cook. is the perfect comfort food. When it’s in the house I will happily eat it at every meal till it’s gone.
This time I snapped a photo or two before I devoured it all.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Especially the lasagna Florentine my dad taught me to cook. |
|---|
Wow, that was a show.
The data looked ridiculous from the outset. There’s one parameter, when you’re consulting the oracle (sorry, the space-weather data), the Bz, that you want to be a negative number. I’ve seen great shows when the Bz was around ‑3 or ‑5. The longer it’s negative, the better.
Yesterday afternoon, every time I checked, the Bz was around ‑15. Crazy.
And the auroral oval looked like this. When it’s yellow, that’s usually a good sign. Red—that much red—is flat-out amazing.
Time to start another spin around the sun.
Well, I found evidence that I was at the Edmonton International Judo Championships this year.
Oh yeah, I guess I’m in the group shot, too.
Photos from my back lane, March 3rd, 2023, a couple days after Jupiter and Venus’ conjunction.
Jupiter’s moons (top left to lower right) Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa are visible in the full-size image. (Io is too close to Jupiter to be visible here.)
