I always had a mild interest in astronomy, and it became a strong interest in the 1990s, triggered by a homework assignment given to my ten-year-old son to go out at night and identify some constellations. I took him away from the city lights to a park where we could see the stars emerge from twilight. On that beautiful fall evening, we found the constellations he was looking for, and we also saw Jupiter, the brightest object in the sky. Through binoculars, we were surprised that we could see its moons. This caused me to wonder what else I might be able to see if I were to look a little closer.
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Planet Rise
Central Minnesota, 11 July 99
E200 Ektachrome
The subtle details of the night sky fade away with the dawn, but the brightest remain: the planets Jupiter and Saturn rise above a windbreak on a prairie farm. The sky will brighten and they will eventually be lost (though if you know where to aim a telescope, they can be found again in broad daylight)!
On this occasion, the clear skies held through the night. The distant haze provided the right conditions to spread the long rays from the sun. It’s an unusual transition of colors from orange to blue, a combination not found in many other places in nature. The planets poke holes in the otherwise smooth shading.