This is the comet C/2023-A3 Tsuchinshan. It has come into the inner solar system from deep in the Ort Cloud at the outer limits of the sun’s gravitational field. It’s on a hyperbolic trajectory as it passes by the sun, meaning that it’s not ever going to come back, it’s just passing through, a stranger and first time visitor to our neighborhood.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said “Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a passer by” كُن في الدُّنيا كَأنَّكَ غَرِيبٌ أو عَابِرُ سَبِيلٍٍ
Shine your light, leave behind some traces of your presence, and leave in peace the way you came in.
The first photo is a close up taken on 10/12/24.
The Stranger with its Anti-Tail
The second photo from 10/14/24 is a wider angle and taken when the Earth was crossing the orbital plane of the comet and so we can see not only the comet’s tail flowing away from the sun, but also it’s Anti-Tail pointing back to the sun. A comet’s tail always points away from the sun as the solar wind and energy ablate the comet and cause particles to blow off of it away from the sun. The Anti-Tail only shows up when we cross the comet’s orbital plane and is made up of the comet’s particles that are left behind. The Anti-Tail points towards the sun.
Get out and see this comet with your own eyes before it’s gone, its a once in lifetime chance, literally.
I ventured out on Thursday night to try my first attempt at photographing the Aurora Borealis. I did not know what to expect nor what the aurora would look like. I decided on a location in Marin County in California in Mount Tamalpias State park on Point Ballou which was approximately 2000 feet above sea level hoping to avoid any fog coming off the coast. It also had a good view north with the northern horizon line just a bit lower than the point.
When I got to the park entrance just after sunset, the rangers had already locked the gates. That I was not expecting and I felt like my effort was thwarted. I parked there for a few minutes considering my options. Go back into the Bay Area and try to find a composition that included a bridge or try heading further north into Point Reyes National Seashore. I chose the latter and headed down to Hwy 1 along the coast. It was around 8 pm by the time I got to Hwy 1 and started heading north. All along the way the Coast ranges were blocking any view to the north until I got into Olema. There was one open section where I could see the Big Dipper, but the horizon was a bit high. I continued on into Point Reyes only to find I was under fog. So I turned around and headed back to Olema and made my stand there.
I arrived around 8:30 pm and very near peak storm according to the Astropheric Kp forecast. I pointed my camera north and made an exposure and sure enough, even though my eyes could not see anything in the sky, a huge swath of crimson appeared on my LCD. I spent the next hour making exposures. But it was strange as the swath of color did not have the ribbons of light, nor did spread out horizontally along the horizon. I was somewhat puzzled and a little bit disappointed in how the night turned out.
When I returned to my neighborhood in the Santa Cruz Mountains around midnight, I decided to stop at the only area where I could get a view of the sky and I wanted to photograph Orion as it rose in the east. To my amazement that crimson band was there in the North East! I turned to the North West and made another exposure and that band was there again. I was greatly puzzled.
When I got home, I started to look up other photos of the Aurora on Spaceweather.com and happened upon a photo with a caption stating a possible SAR arc was in the photo. I looked it up and discovered that a SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc is a unique phenomena that takes place during intense geomagnetic storms but is not an aurora. Aurora are caused by charged particles interacting with the upper atmosphere and the Van Allen Belts causing the particles to glow.
A SAR arc is caused by a release of heat into the upper atmosphere and interacting with the Earth’s Ring Current System -What? I know! Crazy!
So the first photo above is what I “saw” around 8:30 pm. The SAR arc is very prominent arcing from the NW and over my head. I think I did catch some of the Aurora off to the North just over the horizon.
The second photo below is from the same location but around 9 pm during the peak of the geomagnetic storm and I think the Aurora intensified a bit as I can see, in the photo, some vertical banding in it. The SAR arc also seemed to intensify a bit.
SAR arc near peak geomagnetic storm
The Aurora on the horizon has intensified as vertical ribbons are now somewhat visible and the SAR has also intensified.
The last two photos below are of the SAR arc from my neighborhood, and the crazy thing is that it did actually arc across the entire sky from NW to NE!
The SAR from my neighborhood facing NorthwestThe SAR now facing Northeast
I went out looking for Auroras and came back with something even more rare, a SAR arc!
This world we live in ceases to amaze with its varied natural phenomena. Even when we cannot see it, as a SAR arc is usually not visible to the human eye as it radiates light as a pure monochromatic 6300 Angstrom wavelength. Our eyes can see light in the wavelength range from 4000 to 7000 Angstroms (violet at 4000 to red at 7000 Angstroms). It starts getting difficult to see light at about 6000 Angstroms. Digital cameras on the other hand, can see well into the infrared light spectrum and that is why the red auroras and this SAR come out so clearly in digital photographs.
The Auroras are typical in the high northern and southern latitudes and become even more pronounced when the Earth experiences a geomagnetic storm. In these geomagnetic storms the Earth is bombarded by charged particles that were ejected from the surface of the sun during what is called a CME or Coronal Mass Ejection. The recent geomagnetic storm that produced these photographs resulted from the charged particles ejected from a massive sunspot on the surface of the sun about ten times the size of the Earth. The sunspots are like giant magnetic storms on the surface of the sun and a CME is like a massive volcanic explosion sending matter out into the solar system. If not for the Van Allen Belts surrounding the Earth, our very own cosmic shield, such a geomagnetic storm would seriously hurt all living things on the Earth. HERE is a good example of what the Van Allen Belts do for us when a CME hits the earth.
The spectacle of light in the night sky is something surreal and amazing. As if the starry sky was not enough to keep us enthralled, The Sublime bestows many subtle yet awe inspiring displays of light both in the day and in the night. No wonder God says that God is The Light of the Heavens and the Earth because nothing is comparable to God, and nothing in this world is comparable to Light.
Take some time and go out into the night to marvel at the grandeur that is the sky.
This is the latest new crescent moon photographed on May 8th, 2024.It is not much different from any of the other moons I have photographed. A thin sliver of light, a lovely gentle gradient of color in the sky, and, oh wait, what are those little white dots? Click on the photo for an enlarged view if you can’t see the white dots.
The new crescent moon of this month was within 2 degrees from the Pleiades star cluster. I wondered while making the photograph if I waited long enough if the stars of Pleiades might become visible. The above photograph was taken at 8:34 pm PDT and as I examined the photo on the camera’s LCD screen, I could not see the stars. So I waited and continued to photograph the moon as it approached the horizon. At around 8:45 pm, as I zoomed in on the LCD, I could see two of the seven stars, so I continued to wait and photograph. As the evening waned, the sky became darker, and somewhat more hazy as well and the same two stars were becoming more prominent on the LCD but not the other five. At the same time, the photograph was starting to show much more digital noise as I needed to raise the ISO setting to higher values to keep the shutter speed fast enough that the moon and stars did not blur due to their motion. Below is the last photo I made at 9:04 pm PDT.
The stars are more evident in this photograph but only because I edited the file to bring them out. I could not see them with my naked eyes in the sky, and further, I still only saw two of the seven stars on the camera’s LCD screen. Yet, all seven were there and the camera did capture them, even in the first photo I made that evening but I did not know that until I returned home and examined the files in detail.
By the time I made the last photo, the ISO setting on the camera had increased to 6400 and the photographs were becoming quite grainy with digital noise. In attempting to remove the noise in post-processing the software also obliterated the stars of Pleiades as well. That is when I decided to go back and look at the first and subsequent photos that were made with lower ISO values when the sky was brighter. So I thought it would be interesting to go through how I processed the first photo to bring out the seven stars in Pleiades.
The image below is the first photo without any additional processing to bring out the stars.
Clicking on the above image might reveal one or two of the stars but faintly. When the view of the image is zoomed in, all seven of the stars are discernable and are found within the red box highlighted in the image below.
Cropping into just the red boxed area and then zooming in to full resolution the seven stars are all there circled in red in the image below, click on it to see it in full resolution.
A careful selection of the tonality of the faint stars was made to create a tonality mask that was then used to raise the contrast and brightness of the stars alone using some repeated curve layers in Photoshop. However, once I had brought out the stars, I started to wonder if what I had captured in the photo was truly the seven stars of Pleiades or was my camera playing tricks on me and it just so happened to produce random noise that “looked” like the Pleiades.
Earlier in the year in February, I had the same camera on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro star tracker and I photographed Pleiades with over an hour of accumulated data and processed that data to make the following image of Pleiades.
I realized that I had used the same lens to photograph the Pleiades alone as well as the current crescent moon and Pleiades. So I thought what if I bring in the night sky photo of Pleiades and overlay it on the crescent photo to see if in fact the “stars” in the crescent photo are the seven stars in the Pleiades? The following image shows this above deep sky photo of Pleiades overlaid onto the crescent photo and properly aligned with the assumed seven stars. If examined closely, one can see that the pinpoint stars in the crescent photo line up perfectly with the deep sky photo of Pleiades. The seven stars in the crescent photo were in fact the seven stars in Pleiades!
Over the last several days the Sun has been very active and producing some incredibly strong geomagnetic storms that have resulted in aurora that have been visible as far south as Arizona in North America. I was unaware that the aurora could be seen so I did not attempt to photograph it. In fact I only really became aware of the visibility of the aurora because I was inundated with the question if I had photographed the aurora. While this geomagnetic storm event was rare, storms of this magnitude only occur about every 20 or so years, this conjunction of the first day waxing crescent moon with Pleiades is something that I have not been able to find a recurrence of in the past nor in the future. The Pleiades is only near the western horizon in May specifically on May 8th, so it would seem that this conjunction is very rare if not unique. If anyone has the means of determining when a first-day new crescent moon is illuminated just over 1% but not more than 2% and is within 2 degrees of Pleiades will occur again or if it has ever occurred prior to 2024 I would greatly appreciate knowing.
Just over a week ago a video was released by Zaytuna College, where I teach astronomy, mathematics, and Islamic jurisprudence, about sighting the new crescent moon to mark the beginnings of the lunar months of the Islamic calendar.
For years, the start of the Islamic months has been hotly debated between two camps. One camp advocates to adhere to the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing of God be upon him, to go out and actually witness the new crescent moon, and then have the witnesses testify to the sighting to mark its beginning. However, this approach has an inherent variability in it because the new crescent moon will reappear 29 or 30 days after its last appearance. The other camp advocates determining the beginning of the months through an astronomical calculated approach such that the calendar can be predetermined for years in advance.
Both sides have their arguments, and perhaps both have merit, but one cannot feel a calculation. A calculation is abstract. It is lifeless. To most, it means nothing because they cannot apprehend how the resulting conclusive decision to start the month was derived. For most, they would not understand how to go about the calculation itself, they would in essence be calculatedly illiterate.
It baffles me a bit that the camp arguing for the calculation approach always quotes the tradition (Hadith) from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, where He says “We are an unlettered community, we neither write nor calculate, the month consists of 29 (motioning with his hands showing 29 fingers) or 30 (motioning with his hands showing 30 fingers) days“. The camp arguing for calculations cites this hadith and says that modern Muslims are no longer a people that neither write nor calculate so we should use calculations. This tradition, however, should be interpreted as a description of the community at that time not a prescription of how the Muslim community should be. Not all the Muslims from 1400 years ago were unlettered. Some did know how to write and very likely some did know how to perform calculations, as they did have and use an intercalated lunar calendar which does require knowing how to do some calculations. However, I would argue, that most people, Muslim or otherwise are illiterate when it comes to the mathematics and the understanding needed to carry out the calculations needed to determine the start of a lunar month, so the tradition does in fact still describe people today as it did 1400 years ago.
To get a sense of what I mean, the following must be determined for any given time on any given date to determine the position of the moon in the sky:
The time must be determined in Julian Centuries
Next, the Moon’s mean longitude is determined
Then, the Moon’s elongation
followed by determining the Sun’s anomaly (which has its own set of calculations)
Next, the Moon’s anomaly is determined.
A series of Periodic terms need to be summed for the moon’s longitude and distance from the Earth.
Then the Eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth around the sun is needed
Finally, the geocentric longitude, geocentric latitude, and geocentric distance of the moon can be calculated.
The whole process is then repeated over and over for every second until the geocentric longitude position of the moon matches that of the sun, of course, further calculations are needed to obtain the geocentric longitude of the sun as well.
Did I lose any of you with any of the above steps?
So where does that leave the common Muslims today regarding how to determine the start of the lunar Islamic months? There is a principle in problem-solving known as Occam’s Razor. Briefly, it is generally understood that with competing theories or solutions to a problem, the simpler one is to be preferred. To that end, there is another well-known tradition from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, where He says, “Do not start the fast until you see the new crescent moon, and do not break the fast until you see the new crescent moon. If the new crescent moon is obscured from you, then complete a full thirty days”. This approach entails going outside once a lunar month to search for the new crescent moon in the post-sunset sky. It only requires the ability to see and of course, count 29 days from the last time the new crescent was seen. It is clearly the simpler solution to the problem of determining the beginning of the lunar months.
The simpler solution does not exclude the possibility of using astronomy to help one find the moon in the sky, it just does not require a person to learn astrodynamics to complete lengthy calculations in abstraction.
Certainty is a beautiful thing. Nothing brings true certainty better than experience. Experiencing the new crescent moon appearing in the post-sunset sky is something that can’t be explained, it must be felt. This evening, 29 days since the last time we saw the new crescent moon, we went out to search for that elusive sliver of light. It was hard. The new crescent moon this month was incredibly thin. A delight to see. Bringing a filling of the heart with both Joy and Certainty. Here is this month’s moon, with its tips pointing up and to the left, if you watched the video you’ll know what I mean.
Shawwal 1443. True Certainty
With the sighting of this moon, the Blessed month of Ramadan comes to a close and it ushers in the Festival of Breaking Fast. A joyous day where Muslims all over the world celebrate by eating, drinking, and Remembering their Lord, for whom they abstained from food and drink for an entire month during the day.
Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim readers, and as always Peace to all.
May 11th, 2021 marked the 29th day of Ramadan this year. As 29 days earlier, we were surprised by a very thin new crescent moon appearing in our sky when we were not expecting to see it on April 12th. Surprise! The moon appeared where the sighting probability maps indicated that it could not be seen except with an optical aid, however to be fair, my location was on the borderline between needing an optical aid and able to see it in perfect conditions.
So on May 11th, I was not expecting to see the moon. The probability of seeing was near zero. Given the moon was only several hours past conjunction and that it set a mere 10 minutes after the sun set, I had a very high level of confidence that we would not see it and that Ramadan this year would be competed as a 30 day month.
The Last Sunset?
As we waited for the sun to drop below the horizon we struggled not to look at it and developing the dreaded green spots that remain as phantom images burned into one’s retina, making seeing subtle things, like the new moon, very difficult. Was this the last sunset of Ramadan? Would something miraculous happen and the new moon become visible to us?
It was not long before I had no doubt, no doubt at all that Ramadan was not over.
No Doubt
The horizon was clear, and 10 minutes flew by very quickly and without a sight of the moon. But wait…. what is that?!
Oh Wait!…
Is that the moon?! So many times in the past, reports came in of something that looked like this condensation trail with claims of it being the moon. It is understandable, the excitement is high in anticipation of either starting Ramadan or ending it that we sometimes can fool ourselves into thinking we are seeing what we really are not seeing. I have “seen” moons in the sky that I wanted to see in my mind’s eye and it has confused me.
But in the end, we left for home grateful for another day of fasting. It is strange, we enter into Ramadan foregoing our food and drink in exchange for hunger and thirst because our Creator asked us to do so, and we obeyed. By the time Ramadan is nearing its end, the hunger and thirst for food and drink we experienced at the beginning of the month, has seemed to have vanished, and now our hunger can only be satiated by standing in prayer, and the thirst we find could only be slaked by the sweet recitation of the Quran. A deep longing emerges hoping that Ramadan never ends. But alas, time marches on.
Shawwal, the month that trails Ramadan, comes with its first day as the Festival of Breaking Fast. As with all the months in the Islamic calendar, the beginnings are marked with either a naked eye witnessing of the new crescent moon or the completion of the month as a 30 day month. Ramadan this year was completed as a 30 day month. Therefore, technically, sighting the new crescent of Shawwal was not needed, but hey that never stopped me before.
As I headed out to sight it, I was expecting a nice thick and bright crescent, as the moon would be 32 hours past conjunction. Ha! Was I wrong!
Shawwal 1, 1442 (seen on May 12, 2021)
As I stood there marveling at how thin of a crescent it was, I thought, after 30 years of looking for new crescents, the one thing that was predictable about the moon is its unpredictability. We humans have tried to nail down a method of predictability for literally thousands of years. We have yet to be successful. Even though our modern astronomical calculations are unbelievably accurate in determining the location of the moon in the sky, we have no method of predicting where or when the moon can be seen with any level of certainty. Our best effort so far, an extrapolation method using regression analysis of past data. Is it a good method? Well, in spite of centuries of observation data, the moon still surprises us.
So Ramadan this year comes to an end. As the moon appeared in the sky, it was accompanied by a familiar night traveler, the planet Venus.
Companions on the Path
As the moon and Venus hung there in the sky, a feeling of serenity and melancholy washed over me. It has always been a moment of great succor for me when I witness the moon in the silence that comes with the evening twilight. I almost need to experience it every month just to know that there is order in all the madness that ensues in the world. The moon returns each month, the sky still glows and time moves on, and with it Ramadan has left.
I already miss Ramadan; the struggle for something greater than myself, for a reason greater than myself, for the sweetness of breaking fast, for the comradery and closeness between family and friends when we sit together to enjoy our evening meal and the rush in the pre-dawn hours to prepare and eat with a looming deadline hanging over us, for the hours spent standing in prayer hoping for salvation from our less than perfect lives, for the melodic recitation of a Book that contains the speech not of anything or anyone of this world.
My closing prayer this Ramadan, Oh God, please bring me to another Ramadan!
The End is Just the Beginning
So as this Ramadan ends, I must remind myself that this is not the end, but just the beginning of another year. Armed with a renewed spirit and commitment to do better, be better, and live better, we part our time with this Ramadan and hope to meet it again in 12 more moons in a state better than we left it.
With that, I wish all of my Muslim patrons a heart felt Eid Mubarak!
And as always to all of you, until next time – Peace.
In the early hours of August 16, 2020 an unusual weather phenomena took place in the Bay Area of Northern California. A dry thunder storm moved through and over the next day and a half more that 12,000 lightning strikes sparked over 615 separate fires in the state. One would never have thought such a violent storm was on its way given the calm quite serenity that came just prior to sunset.
The Clam Before The Storm
The following day 5 spot fires along the peninsula were actively burning and within one day those five spot fires became one big fire burning north into San Mateo county as well as south in to Santa Cruz county called the CZULightningComplex Fire. It was burning in wild lands that I had spent much time in.
From when I first arrived in the Bay Area back in 1990, I found myself wandering the Santa Cruz Mountains in both of those counties amid the old growth redwoods, sloshing around in the many creeks, and sitting atop the many ridge lines just soaking in the view, the serenity, and the sublimity of what the these mountains are. I always dreamed how nice it would be to live deep in these mountains, never really thinking that such a dream would be a reality. Fast forward 25 years I find myself living with my wife and children in a home we purchased literally among the redwoods. Truly a dream come true.
However, following that dry lightning storm on August 16th, the fires that broke out became very serious. Tuesday night on August 18th, the smell of smoke was very thick and safety alerts were popping up on my phone indicating that a fire was very close to home. With the help of my son, we roamed the neighborhood searching for any fire and met up with many mountain neighbors doing the same. No fire was ever found in our immediate area. By August 19th, just three days later, as seen from a ridge near my home, and possibly 10 to 13 miles away, the mountains that I so loved and grew with, were seriously on fire.
Fire deep in the woods
By the late afternoon the smoke from that fire had again reached the skies over our house and the smell of smoke was strong as it settled into the canyons in our area. Reports were coming in that communities to the west of us were receiving evacuation warnings as the fire had grown to 25,000 acres in 2 days! Evacuations were spoken of and we decided that we should start packing our cars with necessary items if we needed to bug out.
In Thick Smoke
By 6 am on Thursday morning August 19th, our area CRZ-E019 was put on an evacuation warning and the areas just west of us, parts of Zayante Canyon were put on immediate and mandatory evacuation orders. The fire had grown to about 40,000 acres and seemed to be growing out of control with only 591 fire fighters trying to stop it! By 6 pm we had pretty much packed what we needed and had taken our 13 hens to a friend’s house who offered to watch them for us earlier that morning, we had decided to button up our home and we left. We drove back down to Campbell, where we lived for 13 years and where family had offered to us accommodations to hold up in until the evacuation orders were lifted. While we were unloading our things, the mandatory evacuation order for our zone had come through at 7 pm. We were now in the endgame and all we could do was wait and monitor the fire growth.
By Saturday, August 22nd, news was starting to surface that Big Basin State Park was no longer in existence. The historic park facilities were burned to the ground. Some photos had made it on to social media and it was then that I realized, many of the canyons and places that I spent so much time in might all have been decimated by this fire. My thoughts about Big Basin burning greatly saddened me and I started wondering about some of the trees in the park. One in particular is over 2000 years old and was affectionately known as the Father of the Forest. A tree whose trunk at its base measures in at 70 feet in circumference and some 22 feet across. Looking up it stretched to 250 feet above the forest floor. No single photograph could capture its massive size. I wondered if the Father of the Forest was still standing
The Father of the Forest
I started wondering about the other places in the Santa Cruz mountains that I had visited and photographed for more than 25 years and had come to the realization that most of those areas are now gone as well. Even though I did pack my computers containing all the photographs of Organic Light Photography, I did not have the means to set them up properly so I went through my website and grabbed a collection of photographs that I have made wandering about Big Basin Redwoods and the surrounding sister lands and created the following video in memorium of Big Basin, a park that has been altered permanently.
In Memorium
After creating this homage to an area of the Santa Cruz mountains that is very dear to me, I have decided that I will be extending my support to Big Basin State Park and the other parks and public spaces surrounding Big Basin through the sale of the photos shown in the video. I will make a sizable donation from each sale to the restoration efforts that will surely follow the extinguishing of the fire. Since I am only an individual photographer and not a recognized organization, I will be reaching out to California State Parks as well as the Sempervirens Fund to find out how I can work with them to offer these photographs as a means to help raising the funds towards restoration. As soon as the details are worked out I will inform you all.
In the time being, I wait to see if I will have a home to return to. I know the firefighters are doing their best to extinguish this fire, and my hopes and prayers are with them to get the job done. I encourage everyone to put your support behind them as they contend with the 615 fires now actively burning in the California.
This evening I went out to seek the new crescent moon of the 12th month of the Islamic calendar and the moon that marks the beginning of the Hajj – the Pilgrimage embarked on by Muslims around the world to the Sacred Ancient House, the Kaba, in Mecca.
As I stood there looking into the sky the crescent appeared all alone in the sky, a sky that was void of any other thing, not even the colors of sunset really accompanied this moon. It was somewhat underwhelming.
All Alone
Normally seeing the new moon brings me much joy. However today I was a little sad. The emergence of this evening’s moon brought in the Islamic month known as Dhul Hijjah, or the possessor of the Hajj, because it is in this 12th month of the Islamic calendar that the Hajj takes place. However this year, because of the global pandemic of COVID-19, the authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the caretakers of the sacred mosque in Mecca decided that it would more prudent to limit the number of pilgrims allowed to make the Hajj this year. In fact, they closed the Hajj to anyone not residing in Saudi Arabia and are limiting the number of pilgrims to only a few thousand.
For Muslims, the Hajj is the fifth pillar of the religion and is an obligation on all able-bodied adults who have the physical health and the financial ability to make the journey. Depending on where in the world a person lives, it is a once in a lifetime trip and some will save for decades before making the journey. I was greatly saddened to hear that the authorities were not granting any Hajj visas this year. But the reason for doing so was well justified. Annually, between 1.5 to 2 million pilgrims will congregate in Mecca and the surrounding area to fulfill the rites of the Hajj. Illness during the Hajj is not foreign and it is expected that one will come down with some type of illness during or afterward. I became very ill immediately after I made the pilgrimage as well as most of my friends that traveled with me. We all had a high fever and chills, followed by severe respiratory infection in the sinuses and lungs. I was ill for almost two weeks. A few of my companions needed to go to the hospital there in Suadi Arabia before we traveled back home. I shudder to think of what might occur if 2 million pilgrims were to contract COVID-19 during the Hajj and then travel back to where they came from. The pandemic might become something that could decimate millions around the world.
So while we might have not been able to visit the Sacred Ancient House, those few Guests of the Compassionate, as the pilgrims are known, will have to carry that community-wide communal obligation for the rest of the world population of the Muslims who will not be making the trip. And while we might be prevented from making Hajj and will probably have to celebrate the Holiday of Sacrifice alone due to social distancing guidelines, we are not alone in spirit.
Not Alone At All
While we may look up at the moon and think that it is all alone, it looks back down, if it could, and it sees all of us below here on earth, as well as all the trees, mountains, oceans, and animals and together we all glorify our Creator, the Most Compassionate. So this year, in ten days, when the Holiday of Sacrifice is upon us, know that the small sacrifice that we have to make as we socially distance ourselves for the protection of all humanity in trying to quell the spread of this virus that has turned our lives upside down, that it is not an insignificant sacrifice at all.
With that, I wish to all those who will be performing the Hajj this year a blessed and accepted Hajj, and to all the rest an early greeting of Eid Mubarak!
Till next time, stay safe, stay well, protect yourselves and your fellow neighbors and community. Peace to you all!
On March 27, 2020, a new comet was discovered. It was the third comet discovered in the year 2020, however the first two comets, SWAIN and ATLAS, disintegrated as they approached the sun. As this third comet approached, hopes were that this comet just might make its transit around the sun intact, and sure enough it did.
On July 5th the comet, now designated as C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, reached perihelion, the closest point to the sun along its path and given the dynamics of how comets become visible, reached its peak brightness, a brightness level high enough that the comet became a naked eye object. From that point on the comet will be moving away from the sun, losing brightness, and on or near July 13th, it will make its closest pass by Earth.
C/2020 F3 NEOWISE at first sighting 4:40am, July 10, 2020.
On July 10, in the predawn hours I ventured out in the hopes of seeing and photographing C/2020 F3 NEOWISE. As I stood out there in the dark scanning the horizon and checking my notes on where the comet was supposed to appear and then scanning the horizon again I started to wonder if I would see it at all. Suddenly I look up and see the comet’s tail has appeared above the horizon and slowly grew in intensity and breadth. It was awe inspiring seeing something made of ice glowing in the night sky.
As a frozen chunk of matter approaches the sun, the ice start to sublimate into a gas and the radiation and heat from the sun causes the gas to start glowing. A comet’s journey begins from as far off as the Kuiper Belt or even further from the Oort Cloud, the physical limit of where the gravity from the sun ceases to be effective in holding anything in orbit. The journey is fraught with peril as along the traverse through space a comet could end up hitting a planet, or possibly an asteroid and never make it even close enough to start glowing. If it makes it close enough to the sun to start the sublimation process, now it must survive the force of gravity as it accelerates the comet to even greater speeds. This is a crucial time for a comet as it could start breaking up into smaller pieces and just vanish, or it could get pulled directly into the sun and vanish into the all-consuming ball of plasma that is the sun.
I’ve had the good fortune of seeing comets in the night sky before. I witnessed Haley’s Comet the last time it appeared in 1986, as well as Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 and the Comet Hyakutake in 1996. I even tried to photograph Hyakutake, with little success, as I was only a fledgling photographer then. All three of which I will probably never seen again in my lifetime. So when I learned about comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, I thought I had better make an attempt to capture it. I think what struck me first was how odd its name was given all the other comets I had seen had names associated with either the astronomer(s) who first witnessed it, predicted its arrival or studied its orbit. I think the most intriguing part of the name is NEOWISE, I thought what could it mean? Well, today the modern naming convention is based on what observing telescope was used to first observe the comet. Therefore comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE was first discovered using the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The first letter of each word in this instrument’s name makes up the acronym NEOWISE. The F3 indicates that it was first seen in the second half of the month of March. Each month of the year is broken down into two halves. The letters A-H and J-Y are then distributed among the months. The month of March has the letters E and F, E for the first half of the month and F for the second half. Next is the ‘3’ in F3. This number indicates the that he comet in question was the 3rd comet discovered in the given year. Next, the year is part of the designation, in this case 2020 since this comet was first seen this year. Finally the C designates that this near earth object is a comet.
C/2020 F3 NEOWISE at 4:52 am on July 10, 2020
This comet will probably never be seen from Earth ever again. It is an ancient traveler from deep space. Its approach orbit was on the order of 4500 years and its outbound orbit on the order of 6800 years in an almost perfect parabolic path. It is definitely an old soul. Old souls usually have much to share with those who are younger if they are willing to listen. When I was young, I used to go to a retirement home to help out. I was always transfixed when I would sit with certain people as they told their stories. There was so much to learn, so much life to understand, so many different perspectives. The wisdom of the of the elders is priceless, it can’t be bought, it can’t be stolen, it can only be earned by painstaking patience through life and as each day passes we could only hope that more wisdom is accumulated. However there is one way in which we can attain that wisdom quickly; we can humbly sit at the feet of our elders and listen to what they have say, what life lessons they have learned along their journey, what advice they can give us. Times may changes but people do not. The problems we deal with now are the same perennial problems humanity has faced for its entire existence. In truth, we would have perished as a species on this planet long ago if we did not listen and learn from those who preceded us.
But I digress… So we have in our midst this ancient visitor to our skies. A visitor that is much older than any of us. Does it have any wisdom that it can impart to us? What does it have to say? What has it learned along its multi-millennial journey across the cosmos to meet us now in this most confusing and tumultuous time?
When we look out into the night sky we see darkness, a fathomless dark emptiness. This universe is not very dense at all; most of space is practically empty. On average the density of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is 0.1 neutral hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter! To put it another way, if you had a cup the size of a small Starbucks coffee in space with you, your cup would be holding about 24 hydrogen ATOMS! That is a pretty empty cup. At the same time, your body alone contains over 7*10^27 atoms (that’s a 7 followed by 27 zeros or 7 billion billion billion atoms)! And of all those atoms in your body 2/3 is Hydrogen, 1/4 is Oxygen and 1/10 is Carbon, and the combination of all those make up about 99% of your body. So yeah, space is empty.
However space is not all dark. There are these little twinkling lights, we call them stars, that adorn our night sky and they are ancient as well. Not only do the stars adorn the night sky but they are there as guiding lights in the darkness of night. We as humans have learned from them the skill of navigation, moving from one place to another without getting lost along the way. The stars guide us by the light that they send our way. On the other hand, during the day the stars seem to vanish from our sky. In fact, they are still there however they are eclipsed by the brightness of the sun. The sun is also a star, the closest star to earth and the most important star of all the stars. Without the sun, life on earth would not be possible. The light of the sun is the energy source that literally powers the earth. From its light, plants produce glucose through the process of photosynthesis. The plants in turn feed the majority of creatures on this planet. We too survive off of plants and on some of the other animals that rely on the plants. Likewise, it is from the plants and animals that lived tens of thousands of years ago that have become petroleum deep within the crust of the earth that we now use to fuel the machines of the world and build our infrastructure.
Without the sun, the land would remain cold and dead. When the sun appears over the horizon it starts to warm the land, causing the surrounding air to warm as well and start rising. This rising air in turn creates a pressure differential in the atmosphere that causes wind to start blowing. The blowing wind in turn moves moisture from the oceans and onto the land and as it continues to rise over mountains starts to condense into clouds and from the clouds, life giving rain comes down to the earth to quench the thirst of all that lives on it and enlivens the earth itself, bringing life back to dead land. The light of he sun is truly life giving and one of the greatest blessings we have.
So what does all this have to do with comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE? What wisdom does this ancient traveler have for us? Comets only become visible when they are close enough to the sun to both start sublimating into a gas and start glowing by the light of the sun itself. The tail of a comet always flares out away from the sun, or in other words, the head of the comet, the part of the comet that is still a solid, is always pointing towards the sun. It is as if the comet is pointing in the direction of what gives life, reminding us that life will only thrive in the Light. Life cannot exist in darkness. Of course I do not only mean that light sustains physical life, but light also sustains life metaphorically and spiritually as well.
The year 2020 has so far been fraught with many dark days. We entered in to 2020 with the entire continent of Australia on fire. And then the SARS-CoV-2 virus which emerged in China in 2019 but suddenly started to spread with pandemic proportions throughout the world infecting nearly 13 million and killing more than half a million humans worldwide at the time of this writing. It not only has taken life, but in our attempt to slow the spread, we have shut down both our societies and our economies further exasperating the trials of life on earth. And then, to add insult to injury, civil unrest has broken out in the United States over the oppressive behavior that some of our law enforcement officers have exhibited to the African-American community resulting in mass protests not only in the United States but across the world as well exposing a disease that no vaccine can ever prevent, the disease of racism. All the while the number of infections and deaths continue to rise and the ugly face of racism continues to fester in our communities. The future certainly seems bleak and full of spiritual darkness. What is the cure?
Enter our ancient traveler, comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, the old one with new wisdom, well actually, its old wisdom. The cure that NEOWISE is pointing us to is Light! The comet is pointing to the sun, the source of light and life on earth. The sun can be taken as a metaphor. When we look at the sun, what are we actually seeing? Are we seeing the sun, (by the way do not look directly at the sun with your naked eyes, they will be damaged), or are we seeing the light emanating from the sun. In fact we are only seeing the light coming from the sun. And the light from the sun is not the sun, it came from the sun but its not the sun. Just as physical light from the sun can dispel the darkness of space, the Guiding Light of our Creator, who has as one of the 99 Glorious Names, An-Noor, which is Arabic for The Light.
The Light of our Creator is there to guide us to what is good and life giving. From among the guidance that has come to us from our Creator is, by way of the Messenger Muhammad, peace and blessing upon him, to love for your brother what you love for yourself. Or by the way of the Messenger Jesus, peace be upon him, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or by way of the Messenger Moses, peace be upon him, Love your neighbor as yourself. And even outside of the Abrahamic Faiths, we find the same message. In Hinduism we find, one should never do that to another which one regards injurious to one’s own self. In Buddhism we find, hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
No matter where we turn we will find the Golden Rule that has come from the Light of our Creator to guide us to what is good and life giving. We are all human beings, all 7+ billion of us, regardless of the language we speak, the food we eat, the entertainment we enjoy, and most of all the color of our skin. We all desire that same things, good health, full bellies of food, warm clothing, a safe place to rest our heads at night, and the tender embrace of our loved ones. I know that is what I love and I also love those same things for my brothers and sisters, my fellow humans on this planet.
C/2020 F3 NEOWISE at 5:00 am July 10, 2020 pointing the way to salvation.
So take heed my fellow brothers and sisters. C/2020 F3 NEOWISE has come to point the way back to our salvation, metaphorically pointing to the Light of Guidance from the The Light – to love for your fellow human what you love for yourself. Until next time, may you all find the Guiding Light.
Imagine walking along a California beach on a mild mid-spring day. Its mid-morning and the fog is just breaking allowing the gentle rays of sunshine to stream through and you feel its warmth on your skin. As you walk along hand-in-hand with your loving spouse, your children are buzzing around like bees jumping and splashing about in the surf with sudden peals of excitement as they bolt out of the water to avoid a crashing wave, the ocean breeze tickles your cheeks and the aroma of the salty air transports you to a state of calm and tranquility without a care in the world.
Imagine all that, just for a moment.
I did not have to imagine it, because I found myself in just such a state. Would you trade that for a million dollars? Would you trade that state of joy for a million, or any amount of money?
As we walked along on that sun swept beach, I suddenly spy a sand dollar lying there in the surf. The sand dollar is a species of extremely flattened, burrowing sea urchins belonging to the order Clypeasteroida. Their test, the hard skeletal shell that makes up their body, exhibits radial symmetry that is five fold. An amazing example of one of the numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence of numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…), appearing in nature. Well it was not long before I found a second and then a third and so on. As we continued to walk along the beach we happened upon a somewhat large depression in the sand. In that depression there were more sand dollars there than I could count. Most were shattered pieces of test. However among the detritus, hundreds of sand dollars of all sizes were found. MOre than I could carry, so out the call went to my assistants and before long we had an impressive collection of sand dollars.
Well, given to the recent fascination with collections of found things on beaches, we arranged the sand dollars and made the fourth installment in the series.
One Million Dollars
What are precious family moments worth? What about walks on the beach? The mysterious nature of Fibonacci Numbers and how they appear throughout nature? Could they be replaced with one million dollars? two million? maybe a billion? Could any amount buy you a moment as rich as those spent in the love of family, nature, and the world?
These sand dollars depicted had already succumbed to their natural demise, as is the case with every living thing. But like any echinoderm, the changing environment in the oceans is wreaking havoc among their populations and no amount of money could ever bring them back. We need to think long and hard about what we find valuable in our lives and strive hard to preserve them.
