Floor Show in the Sky

Sure, it's pretty, but this daytime moon has nothing on the 2012 Perseid meteor shower. The astronomical event kicked off Friday night but it expected to hit its peak tonight. In fact, NASA says it's supposed to be "the best meteor shower of the year."

Those NASA scientists aren't known for hyperbole, so I say we all look up and watch the show. Depending on sky conditions, we can expect to see 60-100 meteors an hour. Not only that, but the brightest planets Jupiter and Venus are lining up for a center stage position. We will even be able to see the red giant Alderbaron adding a touch of color. (How like a star to wear red to a black tie event...)

It's nice of the solar system to offer some nature-made fireworks after the recent excitement of the Mars rover Curiosity. (Honestly, after Curiosity landed the other night I think I heard the cheers from JPL all the way down here in South Pas!)

Go outside and look up tonight, everyone. If you can get out of the city you'll have a better view. Check out the Dark Sky Finder map for the best spot to avoid light pollution. Bring your smartphone and play Citizen Scientist: NASA wants your help counting meteors!

(With everyone looking up tonight, maybe someone will finally figure out what the heck is going on in the night sky above our neighbors in Studio City...)

Night Stroll

Problems always seem to recede into the shadows when I take a walk at night. It's hard to maintain vigilant focus when you're tucked into all those deep blues, blacks and greens. I can't feel too bleak when windows and streetlamps splash all that gold light around. If the day favors reality, night leans toward the imagination, mystery and dreams.

(And a smooth, pearly moon is a nice counterpoint to a sandpaper day.)

Supermoon over SoCal

While the official Supermoon of 2012 occurred last night, tonight's almost-full moon will be pretty spectacular, too. (Go outside and look up tonight!)

A Moon over Mission...

for a Monday.

Star, Moon, Palms, Streetlamps...

...sigh.

Moon With Two Palms

Aren't you tired of the news? The summer heat? The hectic pace? The existential crises that seem to turn the background into shades of muddy gray?

Me too.

So, this week Glimpses is all about pretty stuff -- simple, lovely little details grabbed with the camera. Today, take a look at two ordinary palms topped with an extraordinary daytime moon.

I feel better already...

Moon by iPhone

Just found this on my phone. I took it on the night of the recent Supermoon. Yeah, it would have been great shot with the good camera and a telephoto lens but I am fond of the blurry, impressionistic sweetness of this one. (Or maybe I've just had too much cold medicine this week.)

Moon Between Two Palms

If you happened to be walking over the Oaklawn bridge yesterday in the late afternoon, you would have seen this.

Mood Lighting

I found this one when going through photos I shot last winter. It's just an ordinary street in a sleepy neighborhood. But that moon! That moon! I can't resist.

Urban Moon(s)

I was looking through my files last night and found this image from late September. I liked the way the full moon was upstaged by Mission Station's moon-like clock...

The moonlight breaks upon the city's domes,
And falls along cemented steel and stone,
Upon the grayness of a million homes,
Lugubrious in unchanging monotone.
Upon the clothes behind the tenement,
That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines,
Linking each flat to each indifferent,
Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

There is no magic from your presence here,
Ho, moon, sad moon, tuck up your trailing robe,
Whose silver seems antique and so severe
Against the glow of one electric globe.

Go spill your beauty on the laughing faces
Of happy flowers that bloom a thousand hues,
Waiting on tiptoe in the wilding spaces,
To drink your wine mixed with sweet drafts of dews.

--Claude McKay

Smoking Section

The fire continues to burn. Heavy smoke on the eastern perimeter yesterday limited air drops of water and fire retardant. That same smoke fills the foothill communities, choking the city and turning the moon orange. On a normal South Pasadena night, mountains would span the background of this view.

Now I fully understand the term "smokescreen."

Of course, everything reminds me of a poem. As I stood on the hillside trying to make some sense of scorched earth and shrouded mountains, I remembered these few lines by Tennyson:

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.
The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs,
The deep moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

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For continuing fire coverage, refer to my usual links:

Altadena Hiker
Altadenablog
LA Observed
Firefighter Blog
Inciweb
LA Times dynamic map of current fire zone
LA Now (LA Times blog)

UPDATE: 8:45AM Station fire 42% contained. New fire on Ortega Highway.

UPDATE: 2:30PM 40 miles of Angeles Crest Highway closed "indefinitely" due to fires.

Surreal Night

If film is a warm classic, then digital is a cool avant-garde...

I couldn't resist stopping the car and trying to capture the dramatic summer moon last night as it dangled over a sparkling Los Angeles -- despite the fact that I had the lesser of my two cameras and no tripod. Still, my little digital maverick surprised me with this groovy rendering of a surprisingly psychedelic sky. It's almost as if my camera decided it was Kirlian and started picking up the regional aura.

Yeah, it's grainy and blurred (where was that tripod!?)but I love the way the digital sensor seems to illuminate an impression of the surreal Southern California spirit.