Last night I missed the moonrise.

    When I arrived home from work last night, it was about 7 p.m. Our house was dark and not even the outside light was on. When I came in, Larry told me about the spectacular moonrise he had watched over the past hour and a half. He had watched as the moon rose over the horizon, big and silver. As it rose, it changed to a golden colour, which faded to a yellow and then white moon.    

    And I had missed it.

    So, tonight, as we watched the ice fishermen leave the bay and the skaters, in groups or pairs, slowly left as the sun set, Larry told me again about last night’s moonrise. We looked and looked to the east, but it still didn’t appear.  Then, in the 6 p.m. darkness, Larry saw the yellow top of the moon and called me. We turned out the lights, turned the TV to a jazz music station and just watched.

    Huge February harvest moon! Trees silhouetted against the orange and gold orb. I’m always amazed at how quickly the moon rises, at least at first. It seems mere seconds for it to rise over the trees (how fast is this planet travelling!), but once it is so high, it seems to just hang there in the sky. And when it is still huge and golden, I can really see the “man in the moon”—that smiling face looking down on the trees and houses, laughing as though he knows we’ve always stared up at him and the night sky in wonder.

    I can’t say I have ever had any great interest in learning about the stars I’ve seen in the sky, or the planets. However, now that I can download apps with my iPhone, one of the coolest I’ve downloaded is simply called “Planets” and it allows me to see the night sky as it appears where I am standing. It’s so great that I can see that steady, unflickering light and discover that it is Mars (that’s what is just by the moon right now). For the longest time last fall I could see Jupiter. This app lets me discover the rise and set of all the planets, lets me know if they are visible to me, and even gives me a 3-D view of the night sky. I had no idea I was so interested in astronomy! Or, astronomy lite, anyway.

    The photo here is of a different moonrise, taken July 10, 2006, from my front yard.