Thanks to Tom Clark’s post on Saturday, and the clear blue skies we’ve been having recently, I was able to make something of what’s been going on outside our house for the past two nights. Jupiter and Venus are very bright and close to the Moon. This is known as a conjunction or appulse, and this – it looks like the piece of wire you need to blow bubbles – is its symbol:
The planets and the Moon were very bright; so bright that by contrast all the rest, stars and what have you, was invisible. The only other light was coming from the other side of the lake. I’m illiterate when it comes to reading the night sky. From what I’ve gathered, the upper planet is Jupiter and the lower one is Venus. For some reason in Tom’s pictures all three are aligned, with the Moon at the bottom, whereas from in Norway they form a triangle with the Moon in the middle.
My camera was fastened to a rock-solid tripod, so I’m assuming that the slight blur in the image of the planets is caused by the Earth’s rotation during the long exposure (it took, I’m guessing, about 45 seconds).
If anyone knows more about this, please feel free to add a comment.
A Bad Guide 
I’m illiterate when it comes to reading the night sky.
The night sky is what people watched when they didn’t have TV or the internet. it’s no wonder you are not familiar with it. The ancients would not know how to find something in Google, even the answer to “When will Mars next be in Virgo ?”
Artur,
That’s a tremendous Appulse Capture!
Fortunate — and brilliant of you — to get such clarity.
The 45 second exposure time is thought provoking.
The bubble blower device seems a curiously apt symbol.
Several of the shots I used were taken in the early evening, just after Moonrise — at which point the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were in perfect alignment. In peering skyward these past few nights I’ve noted that as the Moon rises, the positions shift.
But as I’ve had to make sure to also be looking down (avoiding falls), well, there is always that need to be reminded that the sky is… up.
I love it! Thank you and Tom very much.
We’re at the country for some days, at a low mountains place called “Sierra de la Ventana”, and I’m enjoying the south’s sky, when the rain and clouds allows it. last night I tried to take pictures of the moon and two “stars”, now I think they could be Venus ans Mars too.
Oh, Julia, how interesting. Do take a picture tonight!
Siganus is an Astronomy expert.
I only wish I really were. Once upon a time becoming an astronomer was an option, but on Martian astrophysicists are so scarce they tend to evaporate in the ether. However, since we have two moons on Mars, we are quite used to lunar coordinating conjunction.
Nice shot, AJP. (I’m talking about the reddish UFO in front of the trees.)
“… lunar coordinating conjunctions”, in the plural, since they are many…
A last one before a cold shower: how strange that in English the adjective meaning “of or relating to a/the moon” is from the Latin luna. What would the adjective be if we were to construct one with the noun moon. I can’t find anything satisfying (but I tried, and I tried).
Moonish, as in “beamish”.
or Monlike, as in “Monday”?
Sig, as Dearie apparently already knew, and according to the OED, there’s the very old:
moonish, a. Obs. or arch.
(ˈmuːnɪʃ)
Also 5 monyssh.
Resembling or characteristic of the moon; influenced by the moon; acting as if under the moon’s influence; changeable, fickle.
c 1407 Lydg. Reson & Sens. 6183 God forbade That ther sholde in womanhede Ben any Monyssh tache at al, But stedfaster than ys a wal. 1581 Mulcaster Positions xxxviii. (1887) 176 As for bodies the maidens be more weake, most commonly euen by nature, as of a moonish influence. 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. ii. 430 At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, greeue, be effeminate, changeable. 1612 Webster White Devil K 3, These are but Moonish shades of greifes or feares. 1834 Sir H. Taylor 2nd Pt. Artevelde iv. ii, ‘Tis moonish madness.
I don’t know why lunar came in and moonish went out. The OED’s first citation for lunar is from 1593, talking about lunar years and months, in Blundevil’s Exercises.
>Siganus
You tell it in all modesty. I am not a lunatic*; I knew that many moons ago.
* From French “lunatique”. “Que dire du mot “sélénite », habitant de la Lune ? »
Jesús, I was hoping Sig would read this post. It’s not from French, it’s from medieval Latin. For lunatic, the OED has:
[ad. late L. lūnātic-us, f. L. lūna moon: see -atic. Cf. F. lunatique, Sp., It. lunatico.]
c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 369/99 He hadde ane douȝter þat was lunatyke.
I bet lunar is really earlier than the OED’s first citation of 1593.
>A. J. P. Crown
(OK. It was a gimmick to attract a Siganus Sutor. We need “Martian spoken here” as well. : -))
Sig knows I’m the king of Mars.
Jesús, do you know this song? It’s called “Jesus Wants Me For A Moonbeam”.
>A. J. P. Crown
Yes, lunatic, finally from Latin. Curiously, “honeymoon”, that I had always read like a translation of a Latin custom, seems to come from English to Spanish, French, etc. but I don’t sure.
As for your kingdom, I know. Anyway, be careful: our king is (a bit?) burned-out because of his son-in-law. Why? There is an astronomical sum “outer space”. By the way, his name is “Iñaki”, probably from Latin “ignis” (fire). It’s a problem to play with fire.
I’ve never listen to this son. Are they psychedelic nuns?
“as Dearie apparently already knew”: just a light-hearted sally. A didna ken.
It’s very cloudy today. It won’t change in a few hours, I’m afraid.
We’re feeding a lot of ducks and others birds alike (can’t remember their names now). While I’m writing this they are all around us. I can show some pictures of them, but no stars tonight…
Yes, lunatic, finally from Latin.
No, I think they’re saying it came directly into English from medieval Latin.
Dearie, I was impressed.
Stars, ducks, other birds, Julia. Anything will do.
Maybe there’s a clear sky down on Mars?
Siganus, you say you have two moons on Mars, but that’s a very temporary situation, na? Isn’t Phobos or Deimos heading for gravitational disintegration in the (cosmologically) near future?
Yes, Stuart, as the earthish Gauls feared once upon a time, the sky might fall on our head sooner or later.
Dearie, let it be moonish, but talking of the “moonish rover”, of the “moonish equator”, of a “moonish calendar”, of a “moonish eclipse” or of a “moonish influence” would convey another meaning, no? (Funny to note how moonish, when it is used, has come to mean “variable”, unstable, capricious, fickle, inconstant”, etc.) But the full moon is also called plenilune, as one John Cowan taught me in 2009.
Jesús is much more a sunish god than a lunatic.
Yes, AJP, I remember that you are our Lord (and Shepherd).
Moonily: (adv) in a dreamy manner
“We know that when the pretty girl and the handsome lad start moonily planning their future, the crump-crump-crump of an artillery barrage is but a moment away.”
“Moonily the Lord gazed down upon his minions, spilling a wee drop from his cup as he wondered what on earth the pack of them was doing there milling about among his outbuildings, which were meant to contain sheep.”
“Peering moonily toward said appulse at 8:15 PM PDT, 27 February 2012, an’t please your Honour, the witness noted that to the west, above the dark and mighty ocean, a risen Luna had now o’er topped a lagging-slightly-out-of-line King Jupiter, while, smaller yet brighter because nearer, Queen Venus, with a moving yet subtle fidelity perhaps masquerading her calm control of the entire celestial situation, remained steadfastly in place at the base of the configuration, reaffirming its original linear construction while at the same time suggesting to the great relief of the citizenry that, in staging this once-in-a-lifetime display, the ever-inadvertently-magnanimous sky deities are merely fiddling away as usual in their heavens, in which respect (if no other) all’s right with the world.”
>A. J. P. Crown
I only found lunatic as adjective in OED, although as a noun the etymology must be the same. There, as in “Dictionary.com” (clicking in the little book icon), I read “Middle English < Old French Siganus
What does “sunish (god)” mean? I didn’t find it.
I’m sorry.
Full stop after “Middle English < Old French < Late Latin”.
“Sunish” could be the Anglish and Saxonish equivalent of solar.
>Siganus
Thank. I thought that but…
(I still keep the picture of 1-12-2008).
If you click on Sig’s name in his next-to-last comment, you can read what John Cowan wrote and see a wonderful picture of the Moon & Mars.
So ‘moonily’ is the opposite of ‘down to earth’. The Moon governs the tides, though I’m not sure when that was discovered; perhaps in the fifteen hundreds? A bit late, otherwise the Moon might easily have given us an adverb or adjective that meant ‘predictable’ or ‘on time’. Perhaps it has and I just can’t think of it.
“I only found lunatic as adjective in OED” – dead-tree or online? This was what I saw when I went to the site.
“Oxford English Dictionary | The definitive record of the English language
lunatic, adj. and n.”
“A. adj.
1. …”
“B. n.
a. …”
>Stuartnz
I meant “Online Etymology Dictionary”: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=lunatic&searchmode=none
Whoops, sorry!
>Stuartnz
This abbreviation confuses everybody.
OED has always been the Oxford English Dictionary, so I’d say someone who starts an ‘online dictionary’ with the same initials is either very naive or they’re trying to cash in.
Appulse is a good word. I keep thinking of applause. Also of lentils, and magnifying lenses.
I missed the whole thing, though. Never looked at the sky. I think it was too cloudy, anyway.
You would have noticed it. It was very prominent.
>A. J. P. Crown
I’m not really sure but I think the abbreviation of Online E. D. is my fault. I knew this file in the blog of Language Hat and probably I mistake the correct abbreviation O[xford] E. D. for it.
Look! Now I have the pictures I took the night before reading this post, this could be the same phenomena from the South hemisphere…
It was much darker than the picture shows, but apparently the long exposure and the wide open diaphragm made the difference.
Here is another from the same moment
(February the 26th -no I remember that was my grandma’s birthday…)
And if you like to see some ducks et alii…
A walking duck
A talking “gallareta”
Mi kids and the gallareta and her kids
Again the gallareta and her kids. And now fishing (i love when they do that).
The prettiest duck.
Lots of geese
And this “mara” Mr. Crown.
That’s fantastic! How great to be able to see the same event from opposite sides of the earth. And how great that you too thought it was significant enough to photograph. Why is the Moon’s crescent facing the other way round, is it because you’re upside-down compared to me?
Are there normally big special celestial events on your grandma’s birthday?
Ohh, I’ve never noticed what you said about the moon!!
Can you see how a wonderful bad guide this is!
(You don’t only make friends, see lovely animals, read interesting things but also learns scientific facts.)
The Patagonian Mara. They look to me as if they must be related to kangaroos. There’s nothing about that in the Wikipedia article, I’ll have to add it.
The gallareta is a moorhen, they don’t have webbed feet. I can’t see the prettiest duck or the geese, I get a google message instead.
Bad google! But the link is ok…. Well that’s better perhaps, less pictures to watch =)
You’re right, the maras and the kangaroos are very similar.
It’s probably my connection. I’ll look again later.
No, now it works. I love those geese!
Lovely pictures, all of them!
How did you get so close to the mara? Aren’t they very timid?
>Julia
About the Moon, what you probably use like a mnemonic: “la Luna creciente tiene forma de C”, is, for us and related to it, what we express with “la Luna siempre miente”.
What, Jesús? The crescent moon has not for you the form of a “C”?
AJP, Diego took these pictures with zoom, but nevertheless we didn’t saw the maras in their natural habitat, they were in a big “corral” at the little zoo where we were staying.
>Julia
Yes, after the “plenilunio”, waning Moon is in the shape of “C”. You can see “our” waxing Moon in the first picture taken by Mr. Crown. Remember we do a headstand in this part of the world (¡ja! ja! ja!).
Also, here you can compare: http://www.tutiempo.net/luna/fases_3_2012.htm
Thank you, Jesús! They should really teach some astronomy at school. Some of the stuff I was taught (e.g. about specific heat and latent heat) has been useless to me, it’s just taking up space in my brain.
So what do they see at the Equator?
they were in a big “corral” at the little zoo where we were staying.
They were probably enjoying themselves, don’t you think? Were there any other animals, or just birds?
Ah, Thank you Jesús.
When I told “our” discovery to my husband, he said “¡obvio!” [obviously!] but now I think that in fact he was wrong, because he said that you in the North hemisphere never see the moon in the shape of a C, and that’s why the Muslim symbol is a “medialuna” always facing the other side (like a counter-C).
I think of myself as a good observer but I really have problems with left and right, so I had never noticed if the crescent or decrescent moon faces one side or the other.
Yes, AJP, they were other animals: farm animals, some deer, some monkeys. In fact I don’t like zoo very much, I love to be able to see and pet the animals, but I feel bad if they are in small cages. Here there were some big corrals and some medium cages…
I have trouble telling left & right too; I have to really think about it.
No, I hate cages for animals, or anything that obliges them to live unnaturally.
>A. J. P. Crown
“They should really teach…” But, who are they? Are they your teachers? Anyway heat transfer is also important, like everything. For example, you can explain why water takes more time to heat or to cool that others materials.
About the Equator, I imagine it depends on the position of yours feet. Actually, this line is like the 0 year.
As far as confusion between our hands, it’s a kind of slight dyslexia. I have the same problem as well, except about politics.
>Julia
You don’t need your hands to see a “C”. : -)
Not my teachers, I went to a very good school and I’m sure they would have taught astronomy if it had been on the British O-level Physics curriculum. But in the late 60s ‘they’ (the grey people who set the curriculum) didn’t worry about whether physics was interesting, it was more “Britain needs scientists! You! Start at the bottom by learning these simple equations”. I imagine the concept of latent heat or specific heat can be explained in about five minutes to some intelligent fourteen-year-olds, but instead we spent WEEKS AND WEEKS boiling and weighing stuff and writing incredibly boring bloody equations and learning definitions. I don’t need to know so much about these things. It was a waste of my time. And I was never taught any astronomy. Actually I blame Harold Wilson, technocratic old fart. ‘They’ should have followed the US model – not that I know what that was, but I bet it was more interesting.
>A. J. P. Crown
Well, you and I should find comfort in that: “nulla aetas ad discendum sera” (it’s never too late to learn).
P.S.:
Only a comment.- I remember Harold Wilson and even Eduard Heath because the news; however, his successor, James Callaghan, not. Probably then my memory started to fail.
Yes, Jesús; well said! I’ll do that.
The reason you don’t remember Callaghan is because he never did anything. Not because he was lazy, but because (he said) he thought it was his role to not rock the boat. Blair & Callaghan are the two prime ministers during my lifetime I disapprove of most (Blair didn’t do anything either, except start a war). Even so, I resent Callaghan more than Blair. It was a depressing time to live in England; there was rain and Callaghan and more rain.
“Martian astrophysicists are so scarce they tend to evaporate in the ether.”
Sig, could you have meant “heather”?
Beautiful heather pictures, Tom. And poems for dearie in his native brogue.
Give dearie his shoes back!
Artur, is not the proper Martian word “shoon”?
Could well be. I’m not saying it isn’t. They speak an unusual creole on Mars, where Sig lives.
If Sig were here he would probably be reminding us that on Pleasure excursions over the hard crust outside the module in our size EEEE Martian Creole astrophysicist shoon, it’s important to be prepared.
(Obviously Topsy knows this.)
Zut alors! The plot thickens!
In a public service announcement of 2 Mars our Creole astro-man has helpfully warned us of a Martian police orgy, and none too soon — for but a few short days earlier he was declaring his love for Jesús!
(A few vision problems here as of all that straining over the Appulse…)
Tom, if you hadn’t talked about heather I would still be thinking that it meant lande in French, which is a type of landscape covered with grass and other poor, low-lying vegetation, a place one could associate with the Brontë* sisters. And I found it quite funny since Jérôme de Lalande (or “de La Lande”, literally “from the lande”) was a famous astronomer. But you made me realise that the word heather applied to a specific plant instead, a shrub called bruyère in French, a plant that tend to grow on the lande though. (Incidentally, La Bruyère is another one of those rather well-known Frenchmen – a writer this time.) According to my Harrap’s, lande is moor in English, which thefreedictionary.com, quoting the AHD, gives as “a broad area of open land, often high but poorly drained, with patches of heath and peat bogs”.
* By the way, Brontë or Bronte?
It’s pronounced and usually spelled Brontë. I recommend the Wikipedia explanation, which due to ignorance, I’ve no reason to doubt.
I’d never thought to connect heath and heather before, nor moor and Mauritania.