Reveling In Embarrassment

I've been shown up by a bird.
Not just any bird, mind you, but a redtailed hawk. Allow me to explain.
One of my many interests is free flight model aircraft, both elastic (rubber band) powered and hand launched. I have recently been given the opportunity to use those skills acquired years ago with this hobby to write an aeronautics curriculum for a science learning center in southern California. To that end, I've built several gliders that teach the basics, as well as being fun to fly. The glider I was testing on the 13th of May was intended to be a part of that curriculum, but soon I discovered that I had neglected the one thing I admonish student to do - think "simple". The resulting glider, while fairly simple, could not be a simple class project. Still, I decided to complete it and fly it for my own satisfaction.
That's where it gets complicated.
It used to be that I had a real knack for throwing together good designs. While this one looks good, it seems to be loaded with problems. In short, this glider just doesn't want to fly right. I spent a good couple of hours on that Saturday trying, in vain ultimately, to get the glider to stay aloft for more than ten seconds.
It was an embarrassment.
That's when I heard the hawk.
Buteo Jamaicensis, family Accipitridae, subfamily Buteoninae... that's how science refers to the bird we know as the redtailed hawk. It's one of the most common accipiters, according to most books (by the way, that's a lot of fancy talk for falcon and hawk-like birds). They're beautiful, and I've many more interesting stories about them.
But this time, it just seemed that God was out to prove a point. The redtailed appeared, leaving some pines across the street from the field where my humble attempts at free flight were being snuffed like a candle. It let out a cry first; that's what drew my attention to it.
So, I stopped and picked up the damaged glider and watched. With a few flaps, some simple motions of its powerful wings, the hawk began a counter-clockwise climb. It had found a thermal, and was using it to full advantage. It let out an occasional cry, one that seemed to reflect a glee that I for one wasn't experiencing. It just soared, not flapping once, until it was easily eight hundred feet up. At that point, its cry almost sounded like a laugh, and it began making diving runs near the trees. What was it trying to prove?
Lacking the ability to understand redtail, and not being born with the gift of telepathy, I could only imagine what was going on in that hawk's brain. But it seemed to be reveling in life. It was doing so easily, so fretlessly, what my little glider could not. Had it seen me and my foolish attempts at my folly? Even if it did, it wouldn't know what I was doing. It was simply being a young redtailed hawk, nothing more.
Soon, I forgot about my glider and watched as the hawk climbed, making an occasional dive, but soon just a speck in the spring sky, a small, circling fleck of black against an infinite blue. Had I not given up on my glider, I would have missed such a wonderful sight. My embarrassment had soon turned to wonder.
What a wonderful lesson.

Peace,
Rob

Opportunities & Reminders

Whenever I have a day that I'd rather put behind me, I try to reconnect with Creation in some form or another. So it was with the evening of 12th of May, 2006. This day was a tough one for me. Between medical problems and various personal issues, it was just a day I'd sooner forget.
The night, on the other hand, was certainly worthy of memory.
It was dryer than usual, the humidity having taken an unexpected drop. The sky, as a result, was crystal clear. The only real let down of the evening was the fact that it was a full moon. Normally, to many people who don't spend many hours looking at distant, celestial objects, a full Moon is a thing of beauty, a marvelous sight. For astronomers, amateur and otherwise, it is problematic. Not so for me; there is still enough of a romantic in me to find that beauty regardless. I just have to shift what I plan to search for.
Which brings me to the first point I want to raise. One of the chief popularizers of amateur astronomy was a 19th century Anglican priest named Thomas William Webb (there is, in fact, an astronomical organization named for him, The Webb Society). He wrote one of the first truly popular works for the average person, "Celestial Objects For Common Telescopes". It's a wonderfully written work, and in fact is still readily available today. One of the points raised in his book was when to observe -
"Do not lose time in looking for objects under unfavourable
circumstances. A very brilliant night is often worthless for planets
or double stars, from its blurred or tremulous definition; it will
serve, however, for grand general views of bright groups or rich
fields, or for irresolvable nebulae, which have no outlines to be
deranged: a hazy or foggy night will blot out nebulae and minute
stars, but sometimes defines bright objects admirably; never condemn
such a night untried. Twilight and moonlight are often advantageous,
from the diminution of irradiation."

The point he was making was that no opportunity should be lost, and on a night such as the one on the 12th of May, I'd have been much more depressed to know that I missed an opportunity; "no, it's too bright a Moon."
Silly indeed!
Jupiter, the largest of the known planets (in our Solar System) was glorious, its four largest moons readily visible, even in the small instrument I was using. It was so clear and steady that its darker atmospheric belts were clearly visible at times. I even managed a look at an even more distant and faint object, a globular cluster (a large group of stars in a roughly spherical shape) known as M13, in the constellation of Hercules, even with that full Moon lighting the night sky.
I wouldn't have been able to see these that night if I hadn't taken the opportunity. I would have missed a great night for observing. The point that Rev. Webb was bringing up about astronomy also applies to us on a day to day basis. It is very, very easy to overlook opportunities. We want to turn our backs when things are not perfect.
But what is perfect? More to the point, how many things do we miss because things are not as pleasant as we'd wish? There is beauty in everything, lessons to be learned at any point; we simply have to be open to the experience. By turning our backs or choosing to wait until everything is just right, we miss out on important things in life. The lesson is... there will always be lessons. Don't let them slip by.
The second point I want to make is altogether different. As I was looking at Jupiter, I discovered that I wasn't alone in the night.
Somewhere, off in the swamp adjacent to Goodby's Lake, a low 'hoo" cut through the night air. Some people would have frozen; it was a haunting sound, after all. Being raised on a farm, though, I knew the sound for what it was, a great horned owl. Somewhere, out there amidst the pines and cypress trees, an owl was making his presence known. I stopped for a moment, trying to judge the distance between the big bird and I, but to no avail. Yet, there were times when the sound could have been coming from a few yards away, it seemed. It was a reminder, though, that no matter what we do, we are never truly alone.
The signature on my email account reflects this as well, "I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night", a stanza from a poem by Sarah Williams, "The Old Astronomer To His Pupil". For whenever I think that I am lost in the world, whenever things are at their worst, whenever I feel alone, I just have to go out and look up, around, and pay attention. The sound of the owl tonight was just another facet of that, albeit an audible reminder.
We, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, are never truly alone.

A Fragile Beauty

There is a spectacle going on in the sky, and relatively nearby, in a cosmic sense. It involves a comet, Schwassmann-Wachman 3.
This visitor is not like other comets, plunging into the inner Solar System from the depths of space. Instead, it belongs to an interesting group of comets that orbit closer to the Sun and have notably shorter orbital periods, almost five years five months for this comet. As of tonight, though, it just isn't that interesting to look at. At least over the heavily lit Southside of Jacksonville. For even though it is a relatively dry night, it still has to compete with the lights of shopping centers and neighborhoods as it sat low, just east of the better part of the constellation of Hercules. If I could wait another three hours until it is higher, its apparition will improve, but alas I have a day job.
But I digress.
The main point of this essay has to do with a very visible reminder that nothing is permanent. Comet Schwassman - Wachmann is dying. In fact, all comets die a little at a time, but in the case of this short period comet, we are witness to its final death throes. How long these will last is anyone guess, however they were first noted about 15 years ago.
Thanks to popular science and movies ("Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" being recent examples), we think of comets as impressive and fairly tough. Thanks to the aptly named Deep Impact probe, however, we've discovered that instead that have a consistency similar to marangue; it crashed an imapct probe into comet Tempel 1 and blasted out much more material than anticipated, indicating a pretty weak surface. This does very little for their image as planet-killers!
As this comet continues to break-up, it will occasionally flare and dim down. At some point, perhaps this trip round, perhaps next, who knows, it will simply break apart into smaller fragments that will not last long under the intense bombardment of the solar winds. Soon, where once was a comet there will simply be a loose conglameration of material whirling around in an orbit that last a little less than five and a half years; from dust it was created, to dust it will return.
And what a wonderful analogy. I suppose that, in a very real sense, we're like these celestial visitors, going about our lives, occasionally showing moments of brilliance unmatched in our lives, but all the while racing the clock of our own mortality on this plane. For soon, much like this comet, we too shall return to dust.
Don't dwell on that thought, though. Instead, while we still have our moment under the Sun, we should live in the beauty of Creation, and do as we are expected to and endowed by the Creator.
Right now, Schwassmann - Wachmann 3 is but a faint smudge in my binoculars, barely visible. Soon, in a week or so, it will brighten, perhaps one last time. At some point in the future, the only reminder we'll have that it was ever around will be dust, perhaps even a meteor shower. I pray that we all may have many more trips around the Sun.