We Watched The Darkened Skies For The Aurora
We dragged ourselves out from our warm repose (actually very warm, temperatures are over 100 the last 5 days or so) into the cool night air. We slowly floated out of our covers and down the hall to look up at the northern Texas sky. We saw a couple of planets, some twinkling stars, a waning crescent moon cast a dim glow over the My-Lynx Associates headquarters. We were tiptoeing around not wanting to awaken the neighbors to our unearthly preoccupation with the Aurora Borealis. We saw that another Texas blogger had gotten a spectacular photo of the atmospheric glow of the Aurora, so we had high hopes of at least seeing some light in the sky. There was a thin layer of high cirrus clouds here and there as moisture from the Texas Gulf migrated inland, but it only promised a hint of coming rain, a microscopic chance of showers today, which never materialized beyond a few scudding clouds and thin streamers of cirrus.
We stared for a while up and down the tree-lined street to the north, but nothing was apparent. Was it the brilliant light of the sodium vapor lamps, those brilliant sentinels that bring a golden yellow light to the ground and sky both? Did the illumination dim the celestial display with its dazzling and overwhelming localized light, that shines up into the sky as well and makes all but the brightest stars invisible? We cannot say. It could be the hilly terrain locally, which obscures the movements of heavenly objects to a narrow range overhead and to the South. We searched in vain, and returned to our torpor, and with thoughts of rare volumes of books and out-of-print bargains yet to be put online, we tossed and turned until almost dawn. As the faint light of dawn broke, we once again looked northward to catch a glimpse of the tell-tale sign of what the astronomers term a MCE or Mass Coronal Ejection. A giant chunk of the sun's plasma was thrown into space several days ago, and the highly charged energetic particles of the solar sphere itself have been racing towards the Earth's magnetic field, where interacting with the different gases in the upper reaches of the atmosphere has treated summer viewers (we wonder where they are since many of them are in the land of the midnight sun, but anyway those who experience a little night would have been able to see the display.
We awoke later in the morning to process our book orders from around the nation and around the world. It is late at night here at our headquarters, and we are preparing for some late-night reading, perhaps again tonight, we will watch the darkened skies once more in the fond hope of seeing this rare celestial display.
We have seen the wags in the media referring to this solar flare as a "solar tsunami" and one television website we found breathlessly asks the preposterous question: "Are we in danger?"
We have concluded that they are trying to alarm the public by playing to the astronomical ignorance of the risk-averse portion of the populace to enhance their viewer ratings. Next they will be saying that sunglasses or special eyewear will not be needed to enjoy the Northern Lights. There is a company that markets sunglasses that promises "thermonuclear protection" for their product.
The news writers must stay up later than we do at night trying to dream that stuff up during the slow news cycles of August when all the decision makers have fled to their vacation abodes. This is the heart of the "silly season" when anything can happen and will be dutifully reported as news. It usually only lasts till Labor Day, but there is no hard and fast rule about its duration. All we know is that both the ridiculous and the sublime are melded together and served up to the ever-credulous public. We will keep you informed and will not speculate about what might be around the corner.
The only danger we anticipate tonight is a slip on the lawn from the heavy dew on the lawn of our world-wide headquarters as we slink around the property in the hope of catching a glimpse of the glowing celestial lights. And we say slink because we will be in our evening work uniform of t-shirt and pyjamas in case we need to check for your book orders before the break of day. We work around the clock for our international patrons. We just rest our eyes occasionally for a cat-nap now and again. But perhaps some of the neighboring observers may not be so understanding so we will tiptoe.
Our restless night and other worldly concerns reduced our output today. Here is a sample of our new merchandise from the personal collection of a former local municipal official. Read more at the picture-link below:
We stared for a while up and down the tree-lined street to the north, but nothing was apparent. Was it the brilliant light of the sodium vapor lamps, those brilliant sentinels that bring a golden yellow light to the ground and sky both? Did the illumination dim the celestial display with its dazzling and overwhelming localized light, that shines up into the sky as well and makes all but the brightest stars invisible? We cannot say. It could be the hilly terrain locally, which obscures the movements of heavenly objects to a narrow range overhead and to the South. We searched in vain, and returned to our torpor, and with thoughts of rare volumes of books and out-of-print bargains yet to be put online, we tossed and turned until almost dawn. As the faint light of dawn broke, we once again looked northward to catch a glimpse of the tell-tale sign of what the astronomers term a MCE or Mass Coronal Ejection. A giant chunk of the sun's plasma was thrown into space several days ago, and the highly charged energetic particles of the solar sphere itself have been racing towards the Earth's magnetic field, where interacting with the different gases in the upper reaches of the atmosphere has treated summer viewers (we wonder where they are since many of them are in the land of the midnight sun, but anyway those who experience a little night would have been able to see the display.
We awoke later in the morning to process our book orders from around the nation and around the world. It is late at night here at our headquarters, and we are preparing for some late-night reading, perhaps again tonight, we will watch the darkened skies once more in the fond hope of seeing this rare celestial display.
We have seen the wags in the media referring to this solar flare as a "solar tsunami" and one television website we found breathlessly asks the preposterous question: "Are we in danger?"
We have concluded that they are trying to alarm the public by playing to the astronomical ignorance of the risk-averse portion of the populace to enhance their viewer ratings. Next they will be saying that sunglasses or special eyewear will not be needed to enjoy the Northern Lights. There is a company that markets sunglasses that promises "thermonuclear protection" for their product.
The news writers must stay up later than we do at night trying to dream that stuff up during the slow news cycles of August when all the decision makers have fled to their vacation abodes. This is the heart of the "silly season" when anything can happen and will be dutifully reported as news. It usually only lasts till Labor Day, but there is no hard and fast rule about its duration. All we know is that both the ridiculous and the sublime are melded together and served up to the ever-credulous public. We will keep you informed and will not speculate about what might be around the corner.
The only danger we anticipate tonight is a slip on the lawn from the heavy dew on the lawn of our world-wide headquarters as we slink around the property in the hope of catching a glimpse of the glowing celestial lights. And we say slink because we will be in our evening work uniform of t-shirt and pyjamas in case we need to check for your book orders before the break of day. We work around the clock for our international patrons. We just rest our eyes occasionally for a cat-nap now and again. But perhaps some of the neighboring observers may not be so understanding so we will tiptoe.
Our restless night and other worldly concerns reduced our output today. Here is a sample of our new merchandise from the personal collection of a former local municipal official. Read more at the picture-link below:
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