RAINY NIGHT

If you travel to Melbourne, pack an umbrella - you never know when you might need it!

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme

FIRE!

It's not a pleasant thing being woken up at night by blaring sirens and going out see billows of smoke coming out of a house a few doors down... However, it was good to see the rapidity of the response by emergency services and the efficiency with which the firefighters put out the fire. Fortunately, there were no injuries.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

JUPITER AND MOONS

It's a warm, clear Summer night in Melbourne tonight and gazing out from the window, I can see stars! Brightest object in the sky is the planet Jupiter, seen in the first photo, with nearby star Wasat (Delta Geminorum).

I zoomed in with my camera (a compact Sony DSC-HX90V) and with a bit of fiddling I was able to capture the second photo, showing Jupiter and its four Galilean moons, and Wasat.

The last image is a screen capture from the excellent, free, planetarium program "Stellarium". It shows in greater detail what I was observing through the camera. Isn't technology wonderful?

The Galilean moons are the four largest moons of Jupiter. They are, in descending-size order, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. They are the most readily visible Solar System objects after Saturn, the dimmest of the classical planets; though their closeness to bright Jupiter makes naked-eye observation very difficult, they are readily seen with common binoculars, even under night sky conditions of high light pollution.

The invention of the telescope allowed astronomers to discover the moons in 1610. Through this, they became the first Solar System objects discovered since humans have started tracking the classical planets, and the first objects to be found to orbit any planet beyond Earth.

They are planetary-mass moons and among the largest objects in the Solar System. All four, along with Titan, Triton, and Earth's Moon, are larger than any of the Solar System's dwarf planets. The largest, Ganymede, is the largest moon in the Solar System and surpasses the planet Mercury in size (though not mass).

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

MOONSTRUCK

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

SEPTEMBER BLOOD MOON

A blood moon is a term for the reddish appearance of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse. This occurs when the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon. Sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, which scatters the blue light and allows longer-wavelength red light to pass through and reach the Moon, giving it its characteristic crimson colour.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

RAINY NIGHT

This post is part of the Roentare’s Water Meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE "COLD MOON"

June is the first month of our Southern Hemisphere Winter here in Melbourne. On June 12th we saw the full moon, called the "Cold Moon". Although we had a fairly cloudy sky last night, the moon did peek through several times allowing photos such as this below to be taken. I used my iPhone for a quick take. The temperature in our garden early this morning was 2˚C.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

RAINY NIGHT

A rainy night in Melbourne tonight, as Autumn digs its heels in. Hurry home for some snug and cosy delights.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

CITY LIGHTS GLARE

A view towards the Melbourne CBD from about 6 km northeast. It's Autumn here and we've had some rain. The sky is still overcast.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

FULL MOON NIGHT

In the suburbs...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

LANTERN FEST

The Lantern Festival (traditional Chinese: 元宵節; simplified Chinese: 元宵节; pinyin: Yuánxiāo jié), also called Shangyuan Festival and Cap Go Meh, is a Chinese traditional festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar Chinese calendar, during the full moon. Usually falling in February or early March on the Gregorian calendar, it marks the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations. As early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance.

We celebrated it in our garden as it was a warm Summer night and it was fun to light up the lanterns and sip cool drinks.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

EVENING FALLS

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

BUSHFIRE SKY

And the stars shine on...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

NIGHT SKY

View from my window after the cool change moved through and the clouds started to fill the night sky. Jupiter is shining out brightly from a peephole in the clouds.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

NIGHT SKY, JUST NOW

Looking out of my bedroom window, with the Moon Jupiter Orion and Sirius taking pride of place. I have included a screenshot from the excellent app Stellarium that is a must have for all stargazers as it can help identify all those heavenly bodies up there in real time. If you are interested in all things space, star, planet, exoplanet, SETI and extraterrestrial life, follow my account on Instagram: @nicvard

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

POSSUMS

The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula, from the Greek for "furry tailed" and the Latin for "little fox", previously in the genus Phalangista) is a nocturnal, semi-arboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, it is native to Australia, and the second largest of the possums.  Like most possums, the common brushtail possum is nocturnal. It is mainly a folivore, but has been known to eat small mammals such as rats.

In most Australian habitats, leaves of eucalyptus are a significant part of the diet but rarely the sole item eaten. The tail is prehensile and naked on its lower underside. There are four colour variations: silver-grey, brown, black, and gold.  It is the Australian marsupial most often seen by city-dwellers, as it is one of few that thrives in cities, as well as a wide range of natural and human-modified environments. Around human habitations, common brushtails are inventive and determined foragers with a liking for fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and kitchen raids.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme

LIGHT SHOW

When you have no tripod and  the camera slips from your hand after you've pressed the shutter button! I superimposed the same image enlarged and flipped in Photoshop. Just for fun. This was a photo of the road with cars going by our house at night.

This post is part of the  My Sunday Best meme

FULL MOON

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

IN THE MOONLIGHT

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

RUBBISH NIGHT

Taking out the rubbish and enjoying a view of the moon amongst the clouds as it goes towards the West to set.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme