Fireflies!

[altivo]

So it was clearer tonight than last, though still a bit hazy, and we went out after sunset to look at the Venus-Saturn conjunction. At first I was a little disappointed. It may look spectacular through a wide-field telescope, but to the naked eye or with my bird-watching binoculars Venus pretty much steals the show. The inner planet is blindingly bright, while Saturn is not in a good position in relation to the sun and looks like a star, somewhere between first and second magnitude. They really are within less than a degree of each other, but just barely. It's about half the width of my thumb when held at arm's length. Nonetheless, it's an interesting view. There's another very bright planet high in the southeast. It's probably Jupiter, judging by the brightness, but I haven't looked up a chart to be sure.

The real fun thing is actually the fireflies. They are out in full force, making the woods downright ghostly with their flitting lights, and hanging about in the trees as high as 30 or 40 feet up. This is very much like a scene from Fantasia and I wish I could capture it with a camera to show those of you unfortunate enough to live where there are no fireflies. We also spotted a number of bats cruising about, collecting mosquitos no doubt and welcome to all they can eat.

We had cheap champagne with dinner (celebrating all weekend, heh) so the effect of all this may be somewhat artificially enhanced, but it's fun anyway.