Moonglow over Amelia Island

 I was driving east at 5 pm and saw the HUGE moon!

  I walked to the edge of the ocean and took this picture.

 I used no blue filter.

9 pm with ships on the horizon

A Lucy Moment- The Moon

With all this talk about asteroids and meteors, I am reminded of one of my and Barbra's Lucy moments, as in Lucille Ball. (Barbra is our daughter.) I had just gotten a new telescope for my husband Bruce's birthday and the whole family was anxious to try it out.  Darkness couldn't come quickly enough.  Since we live near the beach, city lights are not too much of a problem, so looking heavenward toward the stars on a cloudless night offered a bounty of constellations and brilliance.  This particular night happened to have a full moon shining.  How perfect.  We set the telescope up at the end of our driveway. We read the directions by flashlight and looked in the eyepiece to see the bright red of the traffic light half a mile away.  We were giddy with delight.

"This is a deep space scope," said Bruce. "We should be able to see the craters of the moon with this thing."  Excitement was ours.  We outfitted the proper lenses in the proper position and each took a peek at the moon.

Let me rephrase that.  We each tried to take a peek at the moon.  None of us could see it through the telescope.  "Now, wait a minute," said Mark, my son-in-law. "This should be easy.  We look at the moon with our naked eyes, make sure the lens cap is off, point the thing at said moon and..."  Looking in the eye hole place again, "Where the heck is it?" (Or something similar with a bit of colorful language added.)

Bruce tried. Mark tried repeatedly.  We battled the flying jaws (no see-ums) nipping at our scalps, the buzzing mosquitoes and the chill in the air.  After an hour, the men announced they were going inside to watch TV. Not to be undone, Barbra and I put on jackets, and doused ourselves in bug spray. We looked, she turned it, we changed lenses, I twirled dials, we aimed at the stars, at the moon, at anything. Alas, we saw nothing but black.

As I was about to suggest we give up and donate the contraption to charity, Barbra burst forth with, "I've got it!  I've found the moon!"

Never doubting my child, nevertheless, I had to make confirmation. With fingers crossed, I looked in the eye piece and there is was!  The moon, our moon! The same moon our very own astronauts walked upon and we were seeing it up close and personal, craters and all!

"Step away from the scope," I ordered. "If you sneeze, you might jar it and our moon may be lost to us forever.  I'll get the men. We'll show them!"

All hunkered down, watching some violent drug movie they'd each seen ten times, it took a great deal of my persuasive power, aka whining,  and the bribery of a pan of freshly baked brownies to lure them out to the driveway to see our discovery.  First Mark took a gander.  Then Bruce.  Then, then, then.... they started laughing at us.  The nerve!  Here we had braved relentless insects and tropically chilly temps of some 64 degrees, give or take, and there they were, laughing at us.  We thought the dolts would be glad, happy and proud of us, the same as Barbra and I were of ourselves.

"I fail to see the humor," I snarkily said.

"Me either," Barbra concurred. "You guys just won't admit that Mom and I found the moon when you two couldn't."

"My darling," Bruce said, still laughing.  "You didn't find the moon.  What you found was the driveway.  You have the telescope pointing at the cement and the craters you're seeing are the little holes in the concrete."

"Look in the eyepiece," Mark said.  He squatted down, ran his hand back and forth between the scope and the drive and, with each pass of that hand, our moon disappeared then reappeared.

The last I heard of the not so dear old telescope, it was making the rounds through the family.  Whoever could find the moon or anything besides a traffic light was the winner and, you guessed it, their prize was ownership of same.  All I can say is, "Viva la planetarium!"

Goodbye Lie Diaries- Breelan- Full Moon

Breelan Dunnigan-heroine
of Amelia Island's Goodbye Lie at
http://www.graciousjanemarie.com/

1880s November

Fernandina, Florida

Breelan writes: Two nights ago, the moon was full and oh so very beautiful. Waite suggested we ride to Amelia Beach. I could find no excuse to deny him and why would I? A dash to the ocean atop Noir with my love racing beside me... At water's edge, we slipped off our mounts to wade in the tide, guided by the golden gleam spilt down from the moon onto the gentle waves. We fell asleep in each others arms to awaken at dawn by the sound of sea birds. Our life is paradise. We are blessed.

***

2011 November
Fernandina, Florida

Jane Marie writes:  Bruce and I saw the full moon out the front door and walked down to the beach.  There is no other word for it but glorious. While we didn't sleep on the sand as you and Waite did, we sat on the wooden walk-over and talked...and talked more. It was a night of memories for us, too.  I took a photograph, but the picture does no justice to the wonder of our shared lunar delight. 



the moon over Amelia Island, Florida



Can't Find the Moon

Late into the night, Barbra, my daughter, and I were trying out her father's new telescope.  It's the kind I think they call a refractor scope, where what you're looking at appears upside down to the viewer. We were in search of the full moon. Since a full moon is round, I always got Bs in geometry, I figured it didn't matter if it was upside down or right side up.  How would we know the difference?

The Florida "no-see-ums aka flying jaws" were in our hair, tickling our necks and biting our arms, but we were not deterred.  We spend an hour looking for the night light in the clear starry sky. "Why can't we find the moon in the scope, Barbra?  We can see it with our naked eyes. It makes no sense."

"Don't ask me?  I only want to be an astronomer. Since I don't have my license yet, I'm going to bed."

"Not me.  I'm determined to find the moon."   I pushed I pulled, I pointed the scope at the moon.  I moved my eye close to the viewing hole, I moved my eye away.  I wiggled, I waddled, I finally hit pay dirt!

I ran into the house yelling, "I found it!  I found it! And I can see all the craters!  Come on, Bruce. Barbra. Get up. You gotta see this! Hurry up before it moves!"

Sleepy eyed, they finally hauled themselves out of the cool cozy house into the dark muggy night. Barbra was the first to look at my triumph.  "Cool, Mom.  That's great.  How did you do it?"

"I just stuck with it.  Dog with a bone, that's me.  Have a look, Brucie." And so he did.

"Ah, I hate to tell you this.  I mean, you've been at it forever. You've endured the torture of all the bugs. You've-" He swatted at the creatures himself, momentarily distracted.

"What?" I asked.  "What are you talking about?  I found the moon in the telescope. What's the problem?"

"No problem.  It's just the telescope is pointed the wrong way. You've got a perfect closeup of a tiny cement hole in the driveway."