Zodiacal Light

[VirginiaHuguenot]

SPACE.com -- The Mysterious Zodiacal Light (October 24, 2008)

Zodiacal light - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[video=youtube;bL1OCcorbJc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1OCcorbJc[/video]

 

[staythecourse]

Great Andrew. Thanks. That was terrific resolution.

 

[staythecourse]

I'll set my alarm to see the spectacle.

 

[Ivan]

I see that, Andrew, and think, "How can people believe there is no God."

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Have you been able to see it Bryan? I came across the reference to it ("the phantom of False morning") in Omar Khayyám's Rubaiyat (c. 1120 AD).

I
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.


II
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"

 

[staythecourse]

Hey Andrew,

No. I can't see it. Too close to the city lights. I thought the z light might be brighter. Ah well. However, it's in the memory banks for the future.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Hey Andrew,

No. I can't see it. Too close to the city lights. I thought the z light might be brighter. Ah well. However, it's in the memory banks for the future.

One day, my friend, one day...

 

[staythecourse]

I was out in the stix the last few days Andrew and got up before the dawn 3 times and missed my one opportunity (as the others were cloudy). You're right though, one of these days. Spring and autumn only? True?

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

I was out in the stix the last few days Andrew and got up before the dawn 3 times and missed my one opportunity (as the others were cloudy). You're right though, one of these days. Spring and autumn only? True?

Right, true! Anyway, as you know, I think looking heavenwards can often be time well spent, even you miss out on the Zodiacal light, because you can always spend the time in meditation, as with the Psalmist who said "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;..." (Ps. 8.2).

 

[staythecourse]

Yessir, there was some singing going on in my meditation. "O Lord My God, When I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed!..."

Thanks. I look forward to keeping an eye out for the z.l. and I liked the explanation in wiki - dust 8 km apart in space! Amazing.

 

[py3ak]

Is that what Shelley was talking about in The Revolt of Islam?

'We reached the port. Alas! from many spirits
The wisdom which had waked that cry was fled,
Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits
From the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread,
Upon the night's devouring darkness shed;
Yet soon bright day will burst--even like a chasm
Of fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead
Which wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm,
To cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake's spasm!

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

That may be it, Ruben, thanks for the reference!

A couple of other allusions that I found in classic poetry (if I read them aright) may be found in Homer's Iliad and Moore's The Light of the Harem.

Homer, The Iliad, Book VII (trans. by A.T. Murray):

[433] Now when dawn was not yet, but night was still 'twixt light and dark, then was there gathered about the pyre the chosen host of the Achaeans, and they made about it a single barrow, rearing it from the plain for all alike; and thereby they built a wall and a lofty rampart, a defence for their ships and for themselves.

Thomas Moore, The Light of the Harem:

'Tis day, at least the earlier dawn,
Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,
As if the Morn had waked, and then
Shut close her lids of light again.