GREENYGREY’S RAMBLES

It was a great night celebrating GG’s CBBAW win last night, but the green and grey one slept through it all. 

To make the night even more special, Mars is at its closest to Earth for two years at the moment, and it is near the moon in the early UK night.  You can tell its reddish/orangeness with the naked eye.  Apparently it was also the brightest Full Moon of the year a couple of nights ago.

Surprised GG didn’t wake up for that!

As three planes and their vapour trails streak away from the yellowing horizon into the wide blue yonder I was thinking who needs comets.  Okay, if you are lucky enough to see a comet then it is better, if only because it’s natural and rare, whereas planes and their vapour are man-made and common.  But the sight is pretty much the same from what I’ve seen, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good comet trail.

Talking of plane vapour, who would have thought that something so wonderful looking could be so damaging to the planet and ultimately us.  I guess its similar to products which we take directly, like alcohol and tobacco.  For those who like them, and I love beer, they taste great and seem to be too good to do harm.  But unfortunately, like plane vapour, things that look nice are not always good for us.

Anyway, not getting on my high horse and delivering a lecture, just a few thoughts, and looking forward to my next brewski!

Firstly, thanks to whoever dug yesterday’s blog and voted for it at: http://digwe.com/tags/101/200811/a-whiter-shade-of-pale.html  Please keep voting and appreciate it.

Secondly, an update on recent sky stuff.  I solved the puzzle of the black circle appearing on my photos, and it is the sun!!  More details and photos on main site at www.greenygrey.co.uk

A clear sky on Tuesday night provided a great view of Jupiter and Venus on the south-west horizon soon after dark: http://www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/

It’s gone greenygrey today after a wonderful pink sunrise this morning.  Yesterday there was also a good cake sunrise: a thick layer of grey cloud on the horizon, yellow and white resembling cream and custard in the middle, and fluffy grey cloud above looking like the pastry top.  This was influenced by a polar sunrise/sunset I remember seeing in a book as a child, with the yellow sun amongst white snow and sky making it look like a fried egg.

Thirdly, the new Guns n’ Roses album is streaming in its entirety at: http://www.myspace.com/gunsnroses 
I wrote another Guns related article about Axl’s influences for Suite 101, and it’s available at: http://rockmusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/axl_roses_musical_influences

Fourthly, a bit of a warning that I’m sure you don’t need: looking straight into the sun can damage the eyes (or mince pies in slang)

Now, on with the concluding part of the Saturday Story.

There being a lot of daylight left and it being quite a nice mild day, and the bus I got from the centre going past Kirkstall Abbey, I thought I might as well stay on and have a walk round, as I hadn’t been for a while.

A couple of swans quickly approached me as I reached the River Aire, and I was sorry I didn’t have any food to feed them. 

Then the sun set, and I was treated to a wonderful light show afterwards. There were clouds on the horizon above the sunset, and then more above that after a clear gap, creating a kind of dome or arch effect.

Then the sky under the higher cloud turned translucent sea-green, turquoise, sky-blue and pink for about fifteen minutes.

I think I saw this once before, but was half asleep on a train, and wasn’t sure if I was seeing things. This second time suggested it was happening, so I asked on Yahoo answers, and got a couple of ideas:

1. It might have been Noctilucent clouds. They are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometers (47 to 53 mi). They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow.

2. Diffraction. This is similar to the effect light has when passed through a prism. The light is split into it’s constituent components (wavelengths), and depending on your viewing angle, you will see different colors.

After the multi-coloured light show faded away, the sky started to redden, and there was a conventional sunset which filled half the sky.

Red sky at night, greenygrey’s delight … but the football result still gnarked at the back of my mind!! 

We bounced back with a 5-2 cup win at Northampton on Monday night, with Beckford returning to form with a hat-trick, so that’s the happy end to the story!