Watching the International Space Station Overhead

The third brightest object in the sky

tonight is the International Space Station.

Precisely at 5:37pm, one minute, above South-Southwest.

If only my world was as predictable,

my orbit stable, looking down on this.

 

The Atlantic east coast of the United States from the ISS. Easy to recognize cities include New York City and Long Island at the right and to the left for Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC near picture center.

If you want to watch the ISS pass over your home (it’s visible with naked eye), check at SpotTheStation.nasa.gov

The Frame

This moment of clouds and sky framed

with tree, house, fence and my eyes

changes movie-like, as this poem also drifts

west to east.   I compose a frame.

So much meaning is about the frame.

The Young Moon

 

Young Moon, Thin Moon, New Moon, Crescent –

a Lunar New Year today – for dinner

fish, dumplings, longevity noodles – wealth and prosperity.

Every new moon transitions from the morning

to the evening sky. We clean house.

 

[As sun sets on January 28 in North America, the moon moves back to the evening sky. With a clear view of the Western horizon, we might catch the extremely slender moon over the western horizon just a half hour after sunset.]

Sun Dogs

In these last Dog Days of summer,
two sun dogs at sunset suddenly appear.
Phantom suns, as if this were another
planet where they guarded Helios passing down
through ice crystals on this hot day.

 

A new term to me – “Sun dogs” are an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a pair of bright spots on either horizontal side on the Sun, often co-occurring with a luminous halo.   more about sundogs

Hunting for Orion on an October Morning

Cast off from Halley’s Comet, they fall.

This October day, ice and dust burning.

Orionid meteor stream, first quarter moon setting.

Dark midnight dome, then – Look! – dawn sky –

Sirius, Venus, Jupiter! All is right today.

 

The Orionids stem from debris from the most famous of all comets, Comet Halley, which last visited Earth in 1986 and will return next in 2061. Those bits of comet ice and dust look like streaks of light in the night sky – shooting stars. The best time to view is between the hours of midnight and dawn – regardless of your time zone, and in 2015, the first quarter moon sets in the late evening or near midnight on October 20, leaving the morning hours dark for meteor watching. The radiant point for the Orionids is in the direction of the constellation Orion the Hunter.  Also, in the predawn and dawn sky, look for Sirius, the sky’s brightest star. And the planets Venus and Jupiter are also very bright – brighter than Sirius – and visible in the sky before dawn.  via earthsky.org

Relativity

No matter where you live, look westward –

Tonight, our Moon near Saturn and Antares

connects us in a distant celestial way.

It is noon here now. On Saturn,

the Sun one-hundredth the size. Hello universe.