Tuesday, December 24, 2024

 

Issue 611: Yet Another Christmas Eve at Chaos Manor South

 

Last season's SeeStar shot...
Muchachos, your old Uncle had been keeping a weather eye peeled—literally. The forecasts for Christmas Eve had been gyrating wildly: “clear” to “partly cloudy” to “mostly cloudy.”  Then, back to “clear,” but segueing to “RAIN” as the 24th of December approached. So what? If you’re a veteran reader of the Little Old Blog from Possum Swamp, you’ll recall one of my yearly astronomy rituals is taking a Christmas Eve peep at that most numinous of ornaments, Messier 42, usually in as simple a fashion as possible.

This little ritual of mine has been going on for almost as long as I’ve been an amateur astronomer, getting started one Christmas in the 1960s when everything was on the cusp of great change. As it always seems to be when you are young. I kept it up over the years, but if not as an afterthought, not as something of great import either. It seems to have reassumed some of its old significance in these latter days, though. Maybe because I am old now, and the days when my friends, Jitter and Wayne Lee, and I admired the Hunter with new eyes seem strangely close.

Not to sound overly melancholy or sumpin’; it’s been a bright and calm Christmas, mostly, for me and Miss Dorothy. And, not completely ho-hum, either. There was the slightly raucous W4IAX (Mobile Amateur Radio Club) Christmas Party at Heroes Sports Bar and Grill. Your ol’ Unk had “some” cold 807s and a couple of shots of the Cuervo Gold but nevertheless managed not to run amok or even make a scene!

Other than that, though, ain’t no denying it was a quiet Christmas. That’s just the way it’s been with the kids grown and far away as the years of this strange new century have rolled on. Those enormous, storied Christmases at yore at old Chaos Manor South in the Garden District are but shadows of the past. Which is fine, since your curmudgeonly Uncle now much prefers, “Quiet, no rows, no thank you; I believe I shall just stay home.”

Enough of that malarkey and down to brass tacks. The scope I’d use if it cleared would be little Tanya, the rescue scope. Oh, my old Palomar Junior sits next to Tanya in my radio shack/workshop here, The Batcave, and that telescope would be nostalgia itself. Or I could go whole-hog with Zelda, the 10-inch Dob, and really see Orion.  But you know what? I’ve had more fun with minimalist Tanya than I have had with any visual instrument in many a long year.  More yearning for the simple astronomy of my youth? Yeah, prob’ly, and for my youth, itself, I guess.

Christmas Eve dawned, and after I’d served the felines their breakfast, I took a critical look at the sky. What did I see? CLEAR AS A BELL! Why, it was a blue-eyed Christmas miracle! Maybe. While the dadgum weather channel admitted there’d be “abundant sunshine” during the day, they were standing pat with “partly cloudy” after sundown. It looked like this year might be a win visually. But I began to back off my idea of also imaging Orion with a smartscope.

That was a mite disappointing, since those CRAZY, new robo-scopes have been a big part of Unk’s amateur astronomy this past year. However, whether I’m using a SeeStar or big sis Unistellar, nothing is more aggravating or conducive to indigestion, actual or metaphorical, than drifting clouds. Why it’s worse than an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. Oh, well. There’ll be plenty of chances to snap Orion with the smarties in the coming weeks.

So, the cats fed, Unk settled in on Christmas Eve morning. I puttered around in somewhat dispirited fashion. Miss Dorothy was away—a dear friend had suffered a fall just before Christmas and D., who is renowned far and wide for her kindness, was staying with her to help. Maybe this Christmas Eve would be a little too quiet. Dorothy would be home for Christmas Day, but the felines and I would be on our own on the 24th. 

How would I pass this Christmas Eve? Aside from the hoped-for observation of M42, there was a stack of DVDs laid out on the coffee table including, of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas. There were also Sherlock Holmes movies and the Christmas episode of the old, old, Ronald Howard TV show. For me, those cozy rooms in Baker Street are the very essence of Christmas. And, naturally, there'd be a dram or two of Rebel Yell... 

So, Thomas Aquinas, Chaos Manor South's Resident Black Cat, and I sat on the couch and watched the antics of the Peanuts gang (which for some reason threatened to bring a tear to my eye this year) and the adventures of that greatest of detectives. Tommy and I waited as we always do for the magical hour, 8pm, when The Hunter would be high enough to fool with. 

Tommy and I watched television as the night wore on, and 8pm came and went. I won't say we dozed, but almost. Then, your uncle started awake, or at least more awake and realized the time had come. Out into the night I went to little Tanya. It wasn't too cold but, man was it damp; I hoped the little scope's secondary or maybe even primary hadn't dewed up--I'd left her aperture cover off--but no. On went her red dot finder. Over to Rigel to focus, back to the sword...and there it was!

Shining as it has shined for me all these Christmases, was the deep sky marvel of the North. Have I seen it better? Sure, I have. But it nevertheless shone bravely through the suburban light pollution, and the more I looked the more beautiful it became. Satisfied for the moment, I thought maybe Tanya and I might essay another deep sky object or two, but, no, I didn't want to dislodge that magnificent vision of the Great Nebula from my mind's eye.

Back inside, I asked Tommy if he might want a look. Some years, when we were both much younger, I've held the feline up to the eyepiece and let him drink in wonder. But no, a stretch and a barely opened eye told me he was in for the night. And soon, so was I...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 8:15 PM 0 comments

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