The Night of the Comet is the Book of the Month on Bookmovement.com, a site for book clubbers. I haven’t tried the recommended Night of the Comet cocktail yet.
The Night of the Comet
Comet ISON Heats Up, Adds New Tail
This update on Comet ISON from Universe Today. Come on, ISON! Come on!
Comet ISON Heats Up, Grows New Tail
by Bob King, Nov. 7, 2013
I’m starting to get the chills about Comet ISON. I can’t help it. With practically every telescope turned the comet’s way fewer than three short weeks before perihelion, every week brings new images and developments. The latest pictures show a brand new tail feature emerging from the comet’s bulbous coma. For months, amateur and professional astronomers alike have watched ISON’s slowly growing dust tail that now stretches nearly half a degree or a full moon’s diameter. In the past two days, photos taken by amateur astronomers reveal what appears to be a nascent ion or gas tail. Damian Peach’s Nov. 6 image clearly shows two spindly streamers.
Favorite Astronomy Poems No. 4: “Alone and Drinking Under the Moon,” by Li Po
Today’s Favorite Astronomy Poem is the melancholy “Alone and Drinking Under the Moon,” by famed Chinese poet Li Po (or Li Bai). Here’s a picture to put you in the mood:
(Fishing Boat Anchored on a Moonlit Night, by Bai Jin, 1388-1462)
The poet Li Po was born in 701, perhaps in Gansu province, in China. He spent much of his life wandering up and down China, writing poetry, drinking wine, and visiting friends. He won the favor of the Emperor, and when the Emperor was overthrown, he was exiled and sentenced to death. He eventually received an imperial pardon and resumed wandering. Legend has it that Li Po drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon’s reflection in a river.
Chinese children still learn his poems today in school. This one, “Alone and Drinking Under the Moon,” has been translated many times into English. I like this version, by Rewi Alley
Alone and Drinking Under the Moon
by Li Po (Li Bai), 701-762
Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.
Louisiana Book Festival 2013
Signing books at the Louisiana Book Festival today in Baton Rouge with co-panelist William Conescu, author of the fabulous “Kara Was Here.”
And here’s the line of people waiting at our table to get their books signed:
(Okay, maybe that caption’s not completely accurate.)
inRegister Magazine Review of Comet
Thanks to Donna Perreault and Baton Rouge’s inRegister magazine for a fine review of The Night of the Comet.
The Night of the Comet
By Donna Perreault
Published Oct 31, 2013
The mystery of our parents’ union: Who hasn’t felt its power? It’s the condition for our existence, the prelude to our birth. To an adolescent sorting out issues of identity, how he ended up with his parents can be both fascinating and perplexing. That’s the experience of 14-year-old Alan Broussard Jr. in George Bishop’s great new novel, The Night of the Comet. He puzzles over his parents’ improbable marriage during the year it unravels.
We learn in the prologue that the Broussard family of Terrebonne Parish is heading toward a crisis. Bishop admits, “I’d always envisioned starting the novel with a cliffhanger.” Junior, as he is called, is grown up now and living in Baton Rouge. He finds himself recalling the night in December 1973 when he watched his father climb a water tower with the apparent intention of leaping to his death. Does he do it? Why does he despair? Find out in the ensuing saga, told from “a strange kind of adult-boy point of view hybrid,” Bishop told inRegister. Junior’s voice conveys the “naiveté of youth” leavened with mature insight.
The eponymous comet that sets Junior’s story in motion is Kohoutek, predicted in 1973 to be “the comet of the century.” So says Alan Broussard Sr. to his high school students in the fictional town of Terrebonne. “You’re in for a real treat this year,” he promises at the semester’s start. “Something really special.” Alan Sr. is an Earth and Space Science teacher and a passionate amateur astronomer. In Junior’s eyes he’s awkward and wacky, a source of daily embarrassment. But as Kohoutek barrels earthward, Alan Sr. becomes a local celebrity.
Junior notes this transformation warily, seeing his dad stir up awe and anticipation in everyone—except his wife, Lydia. But the teen has his own passion to tend to: for his new neighbor Gabriella. The comet, he feels, is an agent of change. But to what end? Bishop notes, “Without getting too symbolic about it, the comet heralds Junior’s arrival into adulthood.”
Jefferson Parish Library Reading and Talk
Enjoyed meeting with the Fiction Writers Workshop last night at the Jefferson Parish Library in Metairie. They know how to welcome authors:
Thanks to Chris Smith, librarian extraordinaire.
ISON Lookout
I’ve rigged up this nifty scope to the top of my car for some mobile stargazing. On the lookout for ISON now. I’ll let you know what I see.
(From Will Amato‘s FB page.)
Songs with Astronomical Themes No. 13: “Moonlight Mile,” by The Rolling Stones
Does this count as a song with an astronomical theme? “Moonlight Mile,” by The Rolling Stones, from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, with the infamous cover by Andy Warhol:
Anyway, I like it, especially when the slurry strings come in about halfway through.
Take it away, boys.
Comet Ison Update
Despite dire predictions to the contrary, recent reports say that Comet ISON is still “doing just fine” and “holding it together.”
I think I’m growing to love this little comet.
Latest Images of Comet ISON Show it is ‘Doing Just Fine’
Universe Today
October 11, 2013
As we reported yesterday, the latest data on Comet ISON indicates there is some encouraging news as far as the Comet surviving perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. While some are all doom and gloom about the potential for Comet ISON putting on a good show, these latest images indicate that as of now, this comet is alive and doing well!
“We really do not know what comet ISON is going to do when it gets near the Sun,” wrote astronomer Karl Battams of the Comet ISON Observing Campaign website. “But what we can say for certain, right now, is that comet ISON is doing just fine! It continues to behave like a fairly typical, if somewhat smaller-than-average, Oort Cloud comet. It has given no indication that it has fragmented and while such an event can never be ruled out, we see no evidence or hint that the comet is in any imminent danger of doing so. Any reports to the contrary are just speculation.”
Hubble Confirms Comet ISON Is Holding It Together
Discovery
October 17, 2013
Despite speculation to the contrary, Comet ISON is holding its own against the sun’s heat, with its cometary nucleus apparently remaining as a solid mass.
New observations carried out by the Hubble Space Telescope on Oct. 9 have resolved the interplanetary traveler with a beautifully smooth coma (the dust and gas around the “head” of the comet) with a bright tail swept back.
The comet — which was discovered in September 2012 by the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON), near Kislovodsk, Russia — is believed to be a pristine cometary nucleus that has fallen from the hypothetical Oort Cloud — a reservoir of icy fragments left over from the birth of the solar system. It is reckoned that this “shell” of proto-comets is located around 1 light-year away from the sun.
As this is its first visit to the inner solar system, astronomers theorized that ISON’s nucleus might fragment as it becomes heated by the sun’s energy. Looking at this image, there appears to be no abnormalities in the comet’s coma that would reveal fragmentation.
Interestingly, as noted by a Space Telescope Science Institute news release, a polar jet of dust projecting from ISON’s nucleus seen in Hubble images taken in April is no longer visible and likely turned off.
ISON is due to make its closest pass to the sun on Nov. 28 and, should it survive the fiery encounter, the comet could become an impressive sight in nighttime and daytime skies when it makes closest approach with the Earth on Dec. 26.
Favorite Astronomy Poems No. 3: “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
English majors will likely remember No. 3 in our favorite astronomy poems, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” by Walt Whitman.
Here’s a picture of the old scallawag:
Not as pretty as Audrey Hepburn, but a fine writer. He only had formal schooling up until the age of eleven, after which he supported himself with printing and journalism. He made his name as a poet with “Leaves of Grass,” a collection of poems he self-published at age 36, winning praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, although others condemned his writing for being obscene.
He described himself thusly: “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest.”
Little known fact: some say Walt Whitman was the original model for “Dracula” in the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker, a long-time admirer of his.
Here’s the poem, from 1865:
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired, and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.